I 



THE 



CHURCH OF SCOTLAND 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 



HISTOEICAL MEMORIALS OF WESTMINSTER 

ABBEY. 21s. 

HISTORICAL MEMORIALS OF CANTERBURY. 

75. 6d. 

SINAI AND PALESTINE, in Connection with their 

History. 145. 

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from the above Work, for Village Schools, &c. 25. 6d. 

SERMONS PREACHED AT CANTERBURY. 7s.6d. 
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EAST WITH H.R.H. THE PRINCE OP WALES. 95. 

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LECTURES ON THE HISTORY 

OF 

THE CHUECH OF SCOTLAND 



DELIVERED IN EDINBURGH IN 1872 



By ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY, D.D. 

DEAN OP WESTMINSTER 

CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE 



LONDON 

JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET 

1872 

The right of translation is ?-eserved 




LONDON : PRINTED BY 
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STRKRT SQUARB 
ASU PARLIAMENT STREET 



PREFACE. 



I have prefixed to these Lectures a Sermon preached in 
Old Grey Friars' Church at the kind invitation of the 
Rev. Dr. Wallace, Minister of the Parish, on January 7, 
1872. It indicates the spirit in which I would wish the 
subject in the Lectures to be approached, and on that 
account seemed a not unfitting introduction. 

I have also wished to retain it as a record of the revival 
of a custom which had for a considerable period fallen 
into disuse, but which once was well recognised both in 
the Church of England and the Church of Scotland. It 
had long been my intention to avail myself of the liberty 
of preaching in the sister Church, which the law of both 
Churches allows, and had only waited till a fitting oppor- 
tunity occurred. It is sufficient in illustration of this liberty, 
to refer to the interesting passage at the close of the 
twentieth edition of Dean Eamsay's 6 Reminiscences of Scot- 
tish Life,' as regards the practice and feeling at the begin- 
ning of this century ; to Bishop Ewing's admirable vindica- 
tion of the principle in the 6 Sermon on Christmas-time,' 
intended to have been preached before the University of 
Glasgow; and to Principal Tulloch's able essay on the 
c English and Scottish Churches ' in the 4 Contemporary 
' Review,' in December 1871. That such an event should 



VI 



PEEFACE. 



have taken place without remonstrance or opposition in 
the Church of Scotland is a decisive proof of the liberality 
which, as I have remarked in the closing Lecture, is cha- 
racteristic of its present condition. 

The Lectures are printed as nearly as possible in their 
original state. Some inaccuracies of detail have been cor- 
rected, some ambiguities removed, and some passages which 
had been omitted for the sake of brevity have been retained. 

I would venture here to repeat what was, in fact, implied 
throughout the Lectures, that they do not profess to give 
anything like a complete account of the history of the 
Scottish Church. Some of its most conspicuous personages, 
such as John Knox and Andrew Melville ; some of its most 
conspicuous features, such as its system of education and of 
discipline ; some of its most conspicuous events, the General 
Assembly of 1638, and the Disruption of 1843 — have been 
passed over, partly as sufficiently well known, partly for 
other reasons equally obvious. 

I will add that I have also, on principle, abstained from 
entering into the details of the several controversies in 
which the Church of Scotland has been at different times in- 
volved. The particular points at issue between the Burghers 
and the Antiburghers, between the Secession, the Eelief, 
and the Free Church, between the Moderates and Populars, 
the Collegers and Usagers, the Unionists and Anti-Unionists, 
could only have been set forth by a minute investigation 
and exposition which would have diverted the attention 
from the general features of interest common to all of these 
divisions. 

I have in my first Lecture indicated that the copiousness 
of the sources of Scottish ecclesiastical history, as well as 



PREFACE. 



vii 



the excellent modem works on the subject, render any- 
lengthened narrative unnecessary. I do not pretend to 
more than a superficial knowledge of the vast literature 
which covers this field. But it may be convenient to give 
a brief summary of the chief works that can with advantage 
be consulted. 

For the general history, I would specially name the com- 
pendious, but thoroughly liberal and well-digested * Church 
' History of Scotland,' from a Presbyterian point of view, in 
two volumes, by the Eev. John Cunningham, Minister of 
Crieff ; and the exact and candid 6 Ecclesiastical History of 
4 Scotland,' from an Episcopalian point of view, in four 
volumes, by Mr. Greorge Grrub ; also the numerous notices of 
ecclesiastical affairs in Mr. Burton's elaborate c History of 
6 Scotland and the lucid exposition of all legal questions, 
in Mr. Taylor Innes' admirable work on the c Law of Creeds 
c in Scotland.' 

For the early Celtic period I would refer to Mr. Stuart's 
4 Sculptured Stones of Scotland, and 6 the Book of Deer ; ' 
to Dr. Eeeves' edition of Adamnan's 4 Life of Columba ; ' 
to Innes' 6 Early History of Scotland ; ' and to the modern 
reproduction of some of the chief characters in Montalem- 
bert's 6 Monks of the West.' To these, it is to be hoped, 
will be shortly added Bishop Forbes's ' Kalendar of the Lives 
' of the early Scottish Saints.' 

For the mediaeval period, I must repeat my deep obliga- 
tions to the lamented Joseph Eobertson, which began from 
the moment when I first became acquainted with him — of 
which none can have any adequate notion but those who had 
the privilege of conversing with him, but of which perma- 
nent traces are left in the singularly interesting 6 Essay on 



viii 



PREFACE. 



6 Scottish Abbeys and Cathedrals,' in the eighty-fifth volume 
of the ' Quarterly Beview,' and in the masterly Preface to 
the ' Statuta Ecclesise Scotianae.' I would also name the 
* Sketches of early Scottish History,' by Mr. Cosmo Innes. 

For the period of the Eeformation, it is enough to men- 
tion the ' History of the Eeformation,' by John Knox 
himself; the 'Lives of John Knox and Andrew Melville,' 
by Dr. M'Crie ; the chapters relating to it in Froude's 
6 History of England,' and the Lectures on that and the 
succeeding period by Principal Lee. 

For the period of the great struggle with the English 
State and hierarchy I would indicate Baillie's 'Letters;' 
Wodrow's 'History' and 'Analecta;' the various Lives of 
Eutherford, Claverhouse, and Leighton, with the notices in 
Burnet's ' Own Time,' and Macaulay's ' History of England.' 

For the period of the eighteenth century, I would spe- 
cially refer to the Lives of Eobertson and Blair, Sir H. 
Moncrieff Wellwood's ' Life of Dr. John Erskine,' Burton's 
' Life of David Hume,' the Autobiographies of Dr. Carlyle, 
and Dr. Somerville, and of Thomas Boston, and the histories 
of the various secessions. 

For the events near to our own time, it may perhaps 
suffice to mention Dr. Hanna's 'Life of Chalmers,' Mr. 
Herbert Story's Lives of ' Story of Eosneath ' and ' of 
Eobert Lee ; ' and Mrs. Oliphant's ' Life of Edward Irving.' 
To name the pamphlets and works relating to the Disruption 
of 1843 would be in itself a catalogue. 

Of one other source of illustration I have freely availed 
myself, because in no other way could I so bring home 
the subject to the intelligence both of Englishmen and of 
Scotsmen, namely, the allusions to Scottish ecclesiastical 



PEEFACE. 



ix 



history in the romances of ' The Monastery,' 6 The Abbot,' 
'The Legend of Montrose,' 6 Old Mortality,' 'The Heart of 
6 Midlothian,' 6 Kedgauntlet,' < The Antiquary,' 6 Waverley,' 
and 4 Gruy Mannering.' In no other like works of genius 
are the references to the religious feelings of the author's 
country so frequent ; in none other is a knowledge of those 
feelings so necessary for a due understanding of the humour, 
the argument, and the characters that are produced. 

In conclusion, I would here repeat what in substance 
I have elsewhere expressed, my regret if in any untoward 
remark I have wounded feelings which I would fain con- 
ciliate, not only from their intrinsic claim on my regard, 
but also from the kind indulgence I have received in Scot- 
land even amongst the sections of the Church from which I 
most widely differ. If any such expressions still remain 
I must plead in their behalf that in treading so fiery 
a soil it was almost impossible not to awaken some slumber- 
ing ashes ; and that in so complex and interesting a subject 
it would have indicated a want of self-respect, and of respect 
for those whom I was addressing, if I had not touched, when 
required by the necessities of my argument, on the faults 
as well as on the virtues of the country in which I had the 
honour to be so generously welcomed; always with the 
endeavour (according to the rule laid down in the Address 
by which these Lectures are prefaced,) to understand the 
truth which lay at the bottom of the error, and to make 
the best of whatever is admirable even in those from whom 
we are in other points the most divided. 



CONTENTS. 



'THE ELEVENTH COMMANDMENT.' 

PAGE 

The Eleventh Commandment of the World . . 1 

The Eleventh Commandment of the Churches . . 2 

The Eleventh Commandment of Christianity . . 3-6 

I. Its original meaning ..... 1 

II. Its application to the divisions of Churches . . 1—10 

1. Better mutual appreciation , . .11 

2. Larger and deeper theology . . .12 

3. Union for great objects . . .13 
Greyfriars' Church . . . , .14 



LECTURE I. 

THE CELTIC, MEDIEVAL, AND EPISCOPAL CHUECHES. 

Plan of the Lectures . . . . 19-21 

I. The Celtic Church ..... 22 

The abbatial system. . . . . 22 

The Vitality of the early saints . . .24 

St. Ninian . . ... . 25 

St. Serf . . . . 25 

St. Mungo . . . . .27 

St. Columba and Iona .... 28-33 

Miraculous stories of earlier and later Scottish 

saints . . . . .33 

Reverence for sacramental ordinances . „ 34 



Xll 



CONTENTS. 



II. The Medieval Church 

Its extraneous origin 
St. Margaret and St. David 
Rise of St. Andrews 
Fall of the Medieval Episcopacy 

III. The modern Episcopal Church 

Its English origin 
Its relations to Presbyterianism 
Its state of persecution . 

1. Its violent divisions 

2. Its antagonism to the English 

and State 

3. Its romantic character 
Lord Pitsligo 
Bishop Jolly 
Its present mission 



Church 



LECTURE II. 

THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND, THE COVENANT, AND THE 



SECEDING CHUKCHES. 

The meaning of the name ' The Church of Scotland ' . 58, 59 
Its Unity and its Divisions how to be explained 60 

I. National Independence ..... 61-67 

1. Negative character . . . . .66 

2. Spiritual independence . . .67 

Rejection of the English Liturgy . . 70 

Solemn League and Covenant . . 73 

3. Minuteness of theological divisions . . 75 

Whitefield and the Seceders . \ 78 

II. Results ...... 80 

1. Fervid devotion . . . .80 

2. Judaic theology - . . .83 

3. Poverty of general theology . 84 

4. Moral inconsistency . . . .85 
Lord Crawford and Lord Grange * . 86 

III. Higher religious excellence . . . .87 

Samuel Rutherford .... 88-92 



CONTENTS. 



xiii 



LECTURE III. 

THE MODERATION OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. 

PAGE 

Reply to Mr. Buckle . . . . .97 

Moderation in the age of the Reformation . . 98, 99 

Buchanan . . . .98 

Regent Murray . . . ' . .98 

John Knox . . . . . 98 

Hugh Rose of Kilravoch .... 100 

Early Erastianism . . . . . .100 

Moderation in the seventeenth century . . 1 00 

Character of Henry Morton . . . 101 

Patrick Forbes . . . . .102 

Robert Douglas . . . . 103 

Robert Leighton ..... 105 

His devotion .... 106 

His latitudinarianism . . . 108 

Memorials of Leighton . . .113 

Lawrence Charteris " . . . 114 

The Revolution Settlement and the word 'Mo- 
deration' . „ . . .115 
Carstairs ...... 116 

The literary clergy .... 122 

Home ..... 125 

Blair 125 

Robertson ..... 126 

Hume and Campbell . . .129 

The Relief . . . .130 

° The Glassites . . * . .131 

Intolerance . . . . . 132 

Sir George Mackenzie . . .133 

Controversies respecting — 

Aikenhead . . . . .134 

Simson . . . . . 134 

Wishart. . . . . .134 

Leechman . . . . .135 

Lukewarmness ..... 135 

Reception of Whitefield . . . .136 

Macknight and Leslie . . . .138 

Irving and M'Leod Campbell . . .139 

Note on the Moderate and Popular Parties . .139 



xiv 



CONTENTS. 



LECTURE IV. 

THE PRESENT AND THE FUTURE OP THE CHURCH OF 



SCOTLAND. 

PAGE 

Union of the Church . . . . .143 

The Spiritual Church of Scotland .... 144 
Points of union . . . . . ' 145 

(1) Sentiment towards the Ancient Churches . 146 

Larger liberality of Episcopalians . . 148 

Dean Ramsay .... 148 
Bishop Ewing .... 149 

(2) Larger liberality of Seceding Churches . . 150 

Thomas Chalmers . . . .152 

Dr. John Duncan . . . .155 

The United Presbyterians . . . 156 

(3) Indications of general enlargement . . 157 

Edward Irving . . . .157 

Thomas Erskine . . . .157 

Robert Burns . . . .162 

Walter Scott . . . .165 

(4) The Future of the Established Church . . 168 

Its historical character . . . .169 

Its Presbyterian character . . .170 

Its vitality . . . . . .171 

Its relations to the Seceding Churches . .172 
Its relations to the Church of England . 173 



Chronological Table ..... 182 



4 THE ELEVENTH COMMANDMENT.' 



SERMON 

PKEACHED IN 

OLD GREYFRIARS' CHURCH, EDINBURGH, 

ON 

January 7, 1872. 



THE ELEVENTH COMMANDMENT. 



John xiii. 34. 

' A new commandment I give unto you.'' 

We all know the Ten Commandments. Is there such a thing The 

as a new commandment — an Eleventh Commandment ? We command- 

sometimes hear in conversation of such an Eleventh Com- n ? ent of , 3 

the world. 

mandment invented by the world, in cynical contempt of 

the old commands, or in pursuit of some selfish or wicked 

end. Of such an Eleventh Commandment, whether in jest 

or earnest, we need not here speak. It is enough to be 

reminded of it, and pass it by. But there is also what may 

be called the Eleventh Commandment of churches and sects. 

In the oldest and most venerable of all ecclesiastical divi- The 

sions — the ancient Samaritan community, who have for Command- 

centuries, without increase or diminution, gathered round Dient 

of the 

Mount Grerizim as the only place where men ought to wor- Samaritan 
ship — there is to be read upon the aged parchment-scroll of sect ' 
the Pentateuch this commandment, added to the other Ten. 
6 Thou shalt build an altar on Mount Grerizim, and there only 
6 shalt thou worship.' Faithfully have they followed that 
command ; excommunicating, and excommunicated by, all 
other religious societies, they cling to that eleventh com- 
mand as equal, if not superior, to all the rest. This is the 
true likeness of what all Churches and sects, unless purified 
by a higher spirit, are tempted to add. £ - Thou shalt do 
6 something for this particular community, which none 
€ else may share. Thou shalt do this over and above, and 
6 more than thy plain simple duties to Grod and man. Thou 
f shalt build thine altar on Mount Grerizim, for here alone 
4 our fathers have said that Grod is to be worshipped. 
6 Thou shalt maintain the exclusive sacredness of this or 

B 2 



4 



THE ELEVENTH COMMANDMENT. 



4 that place, this or that word, this or that doctrine, this 
4 or that party, this or that institution, this or that mode 
4 of doing good. Thou shalt worship God thus and thus 
6 only.' This is the Eleventh Commandment according to 
sects and parties and partisans. For this we are often 
told to contend more than for all the other Ten together. 
For an Eleventh Commandment like to this, half the energies 
of Christendom have been spent, and spent in vain. For 
some command like this men have fought and struggled and 
shed their own blood and the blood of others, as though it 
were a command engraven on the tables of the everlasting law ; 
and yet, again and again and again, it has been found in 
after ages that such a command was an addition as venerable, 
perhaps, and as full of interest, but as superfluous, as mis- 
leading, as disproportionate, as that Eleventh Samaritan com- 
mandment — 4 Thou shalt build an altar on Mount Grerizim, 
4 and there only shalt thou worship.' 
The But there is yet another Eleventh Commandment, not of 

Command- ^ ne wor ^' nor J e * J °f mere Churches or sects — the true 

ment Eleventh Commandment of the Christian Beligion. I have 

of the & 

Christian spoken of that Samaritan commandment as I have seen it 

religion. ^ away in the sunny vale of Shechem, beneath the grey 
cliffs of Mount Grerizim. May I introduce this Christian 
commandment by a scene nearer home, within the bounds of 
your own kingdom and Church of Scotland ; a story known 
doubtless to many amongst you, but which a stranger may 
be permitted to recall. There may be some here present 
who have visited the retired Vale of Anwoth, on the shores 
of G-alloway. In the seventeenth century the minister of 
the parish of Anwoth was the famous Samuel Eutherford, 
the great religious oracle of the Covenanters and their ad- 
herents. It was, as all readers of his letters will remember, 
the spot which he most loved on earth. The very swallows 
and sparrows which found their nests in the church of 



EUTHEEFOED AND USHEE. 



5 



Anwoth were, when far away, the objects of his affectionate 
envy. Its hills and valleys were the witnesses of his ardent 
devotion when living ; they still retain his memory with 
unshaken fidelity. It is one of the traditions thus cherished 
on the spot, that on a Saturday evening, at one of those 
family gatherings, whence, in the language of the great 
Scottish poet, 

Old Scotia's grandeur springs, 

when Eutherford was catechising his children and servants, 
that a stranger knocked at the door of the manse, and (like 
the young English traveller in the celebrated romance which 
has given fresh life to those same hills in our own age) begged 
shelter for the night. The minister kindly received him, 
and asked him to take his place amongst the family and assist 
at their religious exercises. It so happened that the question 
in the catechism which came to the stranger's turn was that 
which asks, 6 How many commandments are there,' he an- 
swered 4 Eleven.' e Eleven ! ' exclaimed Eutherford, £ 1 am 
4 surprised that a person of your age and appearance should 
4 not know better. What do you mean ? ' And he answered, 
' A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one 
4 another ; As I have loved you, that ye also love one another. 
4 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye 
4 have love one to another.' Eutherford was much impressed 
by the answer, and they retired to rest. The next morning 
he rose early to meditate on the services of the day. The 
old manse of Anwoth stood — its place is still pointed out — 
in the corner of a field, under the hill-side, and thence a long 
winding, wooded path, still called Eutherford's Walk, leads 
to the Church. Through this glen he passed, and, as he 
threaded his way through the thicket, he heard amongst the 
trees the voice of the stranger at his morning devotions. 
The elevation of the sentiments and of the expressions con- 
vinced him that it was no common man. He accosted him, 



6 



THE ELEVENTH COMMANDMENT. 



and the traveller confessed to hirn that he was no other than 
the great divine and scholar, Archbishop Usher, the Primate 
of the Church of Ireland, one of the best and most learned 
men of his age, who well fulfilled that new commandment 
in the love which he won and which he bore to others ; one 
of the few links of Christian charity between the fierce con- 
tending factions of that time, devoted to King Charles I. in 
his lifetime, and honoured in his grave by the Protector 
Cromwell. He it was who, attracted by Eutherford's fame, 
had thus come in disguise to see him in the privacy of his 
own home. The stern Covenanter welcomed the stranger 
Prelate ; side by side they pursued their way along Ruther- 
ford's Walk to the little church, of which the ruins still 
remain ; and in that small Presbyterian sanctuary, from 
Rutherford's rustic pulpit, the Archbishop preached to the 
people of Anwoth on the words which had so startled his 
host the evening before — 4 A new commandment I give 
4 unto you, that ye love one another ; As I have loved you, 
4 that ye also should love one another.' 

. Let me, on this occasion, humbly endeavour to follow 
the example of that illustrious Prelate, and leaving the old 
Eleventh Commandment of the Samaritan sect, say a few 
words on the new Eleventh Commandment of the Christian 
Church. 

I. Its I. Let me speak first of its original meaning. If we can 

meaning, easily imagine the surprise of the pious Scotsman when he 
first heard of an eleventh commandment, much more may 
we figure to ourselves the surprise of the Apostles when 
they, for the first time, heard this new announcement from 
the lips of their Divine Master. 4 What ? Are not the Ten 
4 Commandments enough ? Must we always be pressing for- 
4 ward to something new ? What is this that He saith, 44 A 
4 44 new commandment ? " We cannot tell what He saith.' 
True it is that on those old Ten Commandments, much 



ITS PECULIARITY. 



7 



more on the Two great Commandments, hang all the law and 
the prophets. They contain the landmarks of our duty — 
the landmarks of our religion. But there is yet a craving 
in the human heart for something even beyond duty, even 
beyond reverence. There is a need which can only be satisfied 
by a new, by an Eleventh Commandment, which shall be at 
once old and new — which shall open a new field of thought 
and exertion for each generation of men ; which shall give a 
fresh, undying impulse to its older sisters — the youngest 
child (so to speak) of the patriarchal family, the youngest 
and holiest and best gift of Him who has kept the good wine 
till the last. Many a false Eleventh Commandment, as I have 
said, has been put forth by the world to supply this want in 
its way ; many a false Eleventh Commandment has been put 
forth by the Churches in their way. But the true new 
commandment which our Saviour gave was, in its very 
form and fashion, peculiarly characteristic of His way — 
peculiarly characteristic of the Christian Keligion. 

The novelty of the commandment lay in two points. 
First, it was new, because of the paramount, predominant 
place which it gave to the force of the human affections, the 
enthusiasm for the good of others, which was, — instead of cere- 
monial, or mere obedience, or correctness of belief, — hence- 
forth to become the appointed channel of religious fervour. 
And secondly it was new, because it was founded on the 
appearance of a new character, a new manifestation of the 
character of Man, a new manifestation of the character of 
GrOD. Even if the Four Gospels had been lost, we should 
see, from the urgency with which the Apostles press this new 
grace of Love or Charity upon us, that some diviner vision of 
excellence had crossed their minds. The very word which 
they used to express it was new, for the thing was new, the 
example was new, and the consequences therefore were new 
also. 6 Love one another,' was the doctrine of Jesus Christ, 
' as I have loved you.' 



8 



THE ELEVENTH COMMANDMENT. 



The solid blocks or tables on which the Ten Command- 
ments were written were of the granite rock of Sinai, as if 
to teach us that all the great laws of duty to Grod and duty to 
man were like that oldest primeval foundation of the world — 
more solid, more enduring than all the other strata ; cutting 
across all the secondary and artificial distinctions of man- 
kind ; heaving itself up, now here, now there ; throwing up 
the fantastic crag, there the towering peak, here the long 
range which unites or divides the races of mankind. That 
is the universal, everlasting character of Duty. But as that 
granite rock itself has been fused and wrought together by 
a central fire, without which it could not have existed at all, 
so also the Christian law of Duty, in order to perform fully 
its work in the world, must have been warmed at the heart 
and fed at the source by a central fire of its own — and that 
central fire is Love — the gracious, kindly, generous, admir- 
ing, tender movements of the human affections ; and that 
central fire itself is kept alive by the consciousness that 
there has been in the world a Love beyond all human love, 
a devouring fire of Divine enthusiasm on behalf of our race, 
which is the Love of Christ, which is of the inmost essence 
of the Holy Spirit of God. It is not contrary to the Ten 
Commandments. It is not outside of them, it is within 
them ; it is at their core ; it is wrapped up in them, as the 
particles of the central heat of the globe were encased within 
the granite tables in the Ark of the Temple. 

This was what the Apostle Paul meant by saying, 6 Love 
is the fulfilling of the Law. 5 This is what St. Peter meant by 
saying, ' Above all things, have fervent,' enthusiastic ' Love.' 
This is what St. John meant when, in his extreme old age, 
he was carried into the market-place of Ephesus, and, accord- 
ing to the ancient tradition, repeated over and over again to 
his disciples the words which he had heard from his Master, 
'Little children, love one another.' They were vexed by 



ITS MEANING. 



9 



hearing this commandment, this Eleventh Commandment, re- 
peated so often. They asked for something more precise, more 
definite, more dogmatic ; but the aged Apostle, we are told, 
had but one answer : — c This is the sum and substance of the 
6 Grospel ; if you do this, I have nothing else to teach you. 5 
He did not mean that ceremonies, doctrines, ordinances 
were of no importance ; but that they were altogether 
of secondary importance. He meant that they were on the 
outside of religion, whereas this commandment belonged to 
its innermost substance ; that, if this commandment were 
carried out, all that was good in all the rest would follow ; 
that if this commandment were neglected, all that was good 
in all the rest would fade away, and all that was evil, and 
one-sided, and exaggerated, would prevail and pervert even 
the good. He meant and his Master meant that, as the ages 
rolled on, other truths may be folded up and laid aside ; but 
that this would always need to be enforced and developed. 

This, then, is the new commandment; we are to love 
one another, by making the best of one another ; by seeing, 
as far as we can, their better side. 

He that will live in peace and rest 
Must see and hear and say the best. 

So says an ancient proverb, which well expresses the meaning 
of this divine command. The new commandment was not, 
' Agree with one another in opinion or in form.' It was not, 
as often has been said in the name of religion, £ Hate, kill, 
6 extirpate one another.' It was not, as in our weakness we 
often say, 4 Flatter, indulge, yield, to one another.' It was 
not, as might in one sense well be said, 6 Teach one another, 
6 or govern one another.' The command was, £ Love one 
6 another.' Love one another in spite of your differences, 
in spite of your faults, in spite of the excesses of one or 
the defects of another. Love one another, and make the 
best of one another, as He loved us, who, for the sake of 



10 



THE ELEVENTH COMMANDMENT. 



saving what was good in the human soul, forgot, forgave, 
put out of sight what was bad — who saw and loved what 
was good even in the publican Zaccheus, even in the peni- 
tent Magdalen, even in the expiring malefactor, even in the 
heretical Samaritan, even in the Pharisee Nicodemus, even 
in the heathen soldier, even in the outcast Canaanite. Make 
the most of what there is good in institutions, in opinions, 
in communities, in individuals. It is very easy to do 
the reverse, to make the worst of what there is of evil, 
absurd, and erroneous. By so doing we shall have no diffi- 
culty in making estrangements more wide, and hatreds and 
strifes more abundant, and errors more extreme. It is very 
easy to fix our attention only on the weak points of those 
around us, to magnify them, to irritate them, to aggravate 
them ; and, by so doing, we can make the burden of life un- 
endurable, and can destroy our own and others' happiness and 
usefulness wherever we go. But this was not the love where- 
with Christ loved us ; this is not the new love wherewith we 
are to love one another. That love is universal, because in its 
spirit we overcome evil simply by doing good. We drive 
out error simply by telling the truth. We strive to look on 
both sides of the shield of truth. We strive to speak the 
truth in love, that is, without exaggeration or misrepre- 
sentation ; concealing nothing, compromising nothing, but 
with the effort to understand each other, to discover the 
truth, which lies at the bottom of error ; with the de- 
termination cordially to love whatever is lovable even in 
those in whom we cordially detest whatever is detestable. 
And, in proportion as we endeavour to do this, there 
may be a hope that men will see that there are, after all, 
some true disciples of Christ left in the world, 4 because they 
4 have love one to another.' 

II. Such is the original of the Eleventh Commandment, 
as it was first delivered by Christ and His Apostles. It 



ITS APPLICATION. 



11 



is in one sense old, for it has been in the world for eighteen Applica- 
tion of the 

centuries. Yet in another sense it is always new, for it Eleventh 

often has been superseded, even amongst Christians, by that ^ent^o^" 

old Samaritan commandment of which I spoke at the the divi- 
sions 01 

beginning. It is always new, for it admits and demands churches, 
ever fresh applications to the circumstances of every Christian 
congregation, every Christian nation, and every Christian 
Church. May I, on this occasion, pass by the application to 
individuals and to nations, and fix your attention for a few 
moments on the new impulse, the new facilities, which we 
possess for fulfilling the love which different Churches ought 
to have one towards another, loving each other, even as 
Christ loved them all. 

(1.) First, this love does not imply the necessity of absorb- (l.) Better 
ing one Church into another, or of destroying one Church in ap p re cia- 
order to make room for another. It consists — and herein the tlon * 
tendencies of our age give us an immense assistance in 
carrying out the new commandment — it consists in a better 
understanding, a better appreciation of the peculiar spirit of 
every Church — in recognising the inward semblance which 
exists under outward divergences. For this discharge of our 
Christian duty, the increased knowledge of our past history, 
the increased means of personal communication, are homely, 
but not less sacred, channels through which this grace 
may flow in and out on all the various sections of Chris- 
tendom. It was a just remark of a veteran statesman 
and historian of France, in speaking of the electric effect 
produced on the fiercest of the leaders of the old Revolu- 
tion by being suddenly, and for the first time, brought 
into close contact with the unfortunate Queen — e How many 
6 estrangements, misunderstandings, mortal enmities, would 
6 be cleared up and dispelled, if the adversaries could, for a 
' few moments, meet eye to eye and face to face.' Not less 
true is this of ecclesiastical than of political hostilities. The 



12 



THE ELEVENTH COMMANDMENT. 



more we see of each other, the more we know of each other, 
the less possible is it to believe each other to be out of the 
pale of Christian salvation, or Christian sympathy; the 
more necessary does it become, in thinking and in speaking 
of the present ecclesiastical state and the future eternal 
state of the divided Churches, to 6 bear all things, believe 
4 all things, hope all things, endure all things' of those whom, 
in the times of our mutual ignorance, we regarded as aliens 
from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the 
covenants of promise. 
(2.) Larger (2.) Secondly, this love, this increased intercourse and 
the^ok^. 61 appreciation, does not imply the disparagement or the dis- 
couragement of Christian truth or Christian theology, in the 
proper sense of those words. On the contrary, it is the neces- 
sary consequence of the larger growth and deeper root which 
true Christian theology has taken, and may yet more fully 
take, in the circumstances of our time. Not without reason 
did the venerable patriarch of German Catholic theology, 
when, addressing a short time since the University of Munich, 
declare that of all the sciences that which would gain most 
from the impetus of modern events was Theology, which 
must henceforth £ transform her mission from a mission of 
polemics into a mission of irenics ; which, if it be worthy of 
the name, must become a science, not, as heretofore, for 
making war, but for making peace, and thus bring about 
that reconciliation of Churches for which the whole civilised 
world is longing.' It is but a natural result of the deeper 
study of the several parts of the Bible, according to the 
intention, meaning, and force of each — that the inward spirit 
and meaning of Christian truth should be seen athwart and 
beneath the outer forms in which the necessary development 
of later times has encompassed it. It is but the natural 
result of the increasing age of the world, that it should learn 
that temperance in theological argument, that better sense 



ITS APPLICATION. 



IB 



of proportion in theological statements, which we sometimes 
see in the increased moderation of the experience of indivi- 
duals, in the mildness of the mellowed old age of Athanasius 
and Augustine, of Luther, of Baxter, and of Wesley. It is 
but the natural result wherever lofty intellectual powers, or 
powerful spiritual discernment, have turned on theological sub- 
jects. The religious thoughts of Bacon, Butler, and Berkely, 
of Shakspeare, Milton, and Walter Scott ; or, again, of Pascal 
and Thomas a Kempis ; or, again, coming down to a lower 
level, of Bishop Wilson's Maxims, or Whichcote's Aphorisms ; 
or yet, again, the sermons of Frederick Eobertson in the 
Church of England, and the 6 pastoral counsels ' of John 
Eobertson in the Church of Scotland, alike lead us to that 
peaceful path of true wisdom £ which the lion's whelp hath 
' not trodden, nor the vulture's eye seen' — which the fierce 
fanatic hath not known, nor the jealous polemic guarded. 

(3.) Thirdly, the true union between Christian Churches (3.) Union 
promoted by the deepening sense — deepening in all that objects^ 
have eyes to see or ears to hear the signs of the time — the 
deepening sense of the mighty works that have to be 
achieved, and that may be achieved, for the moral and social 
regeneration of mankind. There are unions between 
Churches that are often proposed as mere strategic opera- 
tions against some Church or party which we dread or dis- 
like. 1 Such strategy may be needed ; for, in this mixed world, 
we must ever be more or less militant. But with opera- 
tions of this kind the new commandment of Christian love has 
no special concern. It is when we see some union formed for 
high philanthropic objects, or inspired by a common feeling 
of sympathy for what is in itself just, noble, and true, that 
we recognise a sample of what ought to be the animating 
principle of the true fraternal unity of Churches. £ Nothing,' 
says a philosophic observer of our own time, £ produces such 
! See Lecture IV. 



14 



THE ELEVENTH COMMANDMENT. 



c steadfast friendships as working together for some public 
c good.' Nothing so fuses together all differences as some 
event which evokes the better side of human nature in 
large masses of men. Few could fail to be struck by the 
sudden transformation of the whole British nation into a 
people with one heart and one soul, in the recent combina- 
tion of personal compassion and national sentiment called 
out by the anxiety for the safety of the heir to the English 
throne. Such an example is a likeness of wLat might be 
effected by a loyal, universal enthusiasm on behalf of the 
great principles of truth, justice, and beneficence, which are 
the true objects of the devotion of Christendom. The age 
of the Crusades, for which Eobert the Bruce sought to give 
his heart's blood, is past and gone. But there are causes of 
Christian charity far holier than that for which the Crusaders 
fought, which might call forth more than the Crusaders' 
chivalry. The Solemn League and Covenant is dead and 
buried ; but the New Commandment, which bids us unite 
instead of dividing, and build up instead of destroying, is a 
league far more sacred, a covenant far more binding, than 
any which your forefathers ever signed with their blood, or 
followed to death or victory. The famous Confession of 
Faith which issued from Westminster in the seventeenth 
century, as the expression of the whole Church and nation 
of Great Britain — noble and inspiring though it was, in 
some respects beyond all the confessions of Protestant 
Europe— is yet not to be compared with the uniting and 
sanctifying force of the Christian English literature which 
in the nineteenth century has become the real bond and 
school of the nation, beyond the power of educational or ■ 
ecclesiastical agitation to exclude or to pervert. 
Associa- Such are some of the manifold ways in which the Eleventh 
tions of Commandment may in this age be fulfilled as never before. 

Greyfriars' 

Church. And surely it may be said, that if there be any spot where, 



GKEYFRIARS' CHURCH. 



15 



should the preacher be silent on this great theme, the very 
stones would immediately cry out, it is this venerable 
sanctuary. Of Greyfriars Church and churchyard, as of my 
own Abbey of Westminster, it may truly be said, that 
it is the consecrated temple of reconciled ecclesiastical 
enmities. Here, as there, the silence of Death breathes the 
lesson which the tumult of life hardly suffered to be heard. 
In the same ground with the martyrs of the Covenant lies 
the great advocate by whose counsel their blood was shed. 1 
Within the same hallowed bounds sleep the wise leaders of 
the Church of Scotland in the next generation, whom the 
persecutors and the persecuted of an earlier age would alike 
have condemned. And not only is this lesson of larger, 
gentler, more discriminating justice forced upon us by the 
thought of that judgment-seat before which these all are 
passed ; but the memory also of the deeds which have been 
wrought within these precincts impresses the same truth 
upon us. Here it was that Episcopalian ministers shed 
tears of grateful sorrow over the grave of Carstairs ; here 
Erskine, with generous candour, preached the funeral eulogy 
over his ecclesiastical rival, William Robertson. On this 
spot, where a vast congregation of every age and rank 
pledged themselves against every form and shade of Pre- 
lacy, the Scottish Church has, in these latter days, had the 
courage to revive the ancient forms of liturgical worship, and 
welcome the ministrations of Episcopalian clergy. 

These contrasts are of themselves sufficient to remind us, 
how transitory are the feuds which have in earlier days rent 
asunder the Churches of these islands — how eternal are the 
bonds which unite them, when viewed in the light of history, 
and as before the judgment of a higher world. And if the 
ghosts of these ancient disputes have been here laid to sleep, 
never, we trust, to return — if the coming of a brighter age, 

1 See Lecture III. 



16 



THE ELEVENTH COMMANDMENT. 



and the opening of a wider horizon, has dawned from time 
to time on the teachers, famous in their generation, who 
have ministered within these walls — then, I trust, it will not 
have been unsuitable that in this place, and on this occasion, 
a Scottish congregation should have heard from an English 
churchman, the best New Year's blessing under the form of 
this sacred text — £ A new commandment I give unto you, 
' that ye should love one another.' 



LECTURE I. 



THE CELTIC, THE MEDIEVAL, AND THE 
EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE PHILOSOPHICAL INSTITUTE, 
JAN. 8, 1872. 



LECTUEE I. 



THE CELTIC, THE MEDIEVAL, AND THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH* 

It requires some courage in an Englishman to address a 
Scottish audience on a subject so peculiarly their own as the 
Church of Scotland. The motto of your own thistle, 4 Nemo 
6 me impune lacessit,' might almost be rendered in regard to 
the Scottish Church — 'No one has ever meddled with it 
' without repenting of it.' And this apprehension might 
be yet further increased, when it is remembered that I appear 
before you as the representative of a prelatical hierarchy, as 
an Erastian of the Erastians. But I gather confidence from 
the kind indulgence which I have received from all sections 
of the Scottish Church, and I venture to premise that in the 
plan which I propose to take I find some grounds of en- 
couragement. 

It is not my intention to attempt any narrative of Scot- pi an 0 f 
tish ecclesiastical history. Even were it possible for me to ^ e g GC * 
do so, it is unnecessary. No part of the British islands has 
had the history of its church so fully told as Scotland. 1 
Assuming, therefore, in my audience a knowledge of the 
general facts, all that I now propose is to call attention to 
such leading features as serve as landmarks to the whole. 

In speaking of the Church of Scotland, I shall have occa- 
sion in my following Lectures to show more at length 
that the only strict and legitimate sense in which the word 
can be applied is in reference to the National Church of 
Scotland, as established and recognised by law. But it 

1 See Preface to the Lectures. 
c2 



20 CELTIC, MEDIEVAL, AND EPISCOPAL CHUECHES. lect. i 



so happens that in Scotland this expression takes a wider 
range than the corresponding phrases either in England 
or Ireland. There are at present what may be called three 
Chnrches in Scotland — the Established Church, the Dissent- 
ing Presbyterian Chnrches, and the Dissenting Episcopalian 
Churches ; and the course of my Lectures will follow these 
divisions. But, nevertheless, such a distinct demarcation 
as this would be misleading. However much the Scottish 
nation has been broken up by religious divisions, these 
divisions have not only not broken up the unity of the 
nation, but they have not altogether broken up the unity of 
the Church. There is a true sense in which the Established 
Church, the different Seceding Churches, and the Episco- 
palian Churches, are all parts of one and the same Church of 
Scotland — a sense truer than that in which this might 
possibly be said of the Three 1 Irish Churches, or of the Church 
of England in relation to the numerous Churches and sects 
which surround it. The three forms of Scottish belief and 
church government have at different times so overlapped 
and run across each other, that there have been periods 
when, without any straining of language, each one of them 
might have been called the Church or the religion of 
Scotland. And yet more, the different elements specially 
characteristic of each, are in varying proportions character- 
istic also of the whole. There are Scottish traits which are 
never lost in any of them ; there are peculiarities which 
might seem to belong only to one or other of these forms, 
but which yet reappear in each of the three. The tartan 
is the same throughout ; it is only the red, the blue, or the 
green that are differently adjusted. 

It need hardly be said, that an ecclesiastical history where 
such affinities can be traced is exceedingly instructive, 

1 See Lecture on ' The Three Irish Churches,' in ' Essays on Church and 
State, p. 379. 



LECT. I. 



PLAN OF THE LECTURES. 



21 



as showing how the true grounds of union or disunion 
underlie the superficial grounds of either. And when from 
the relations of the different Scottish communions towards 
each other we pass to their common relations to other 
Churches, a new interest arises from the strongly-marked, 
almost grotesque, exaggeration in which these different forms 
represent the ecclesiastical virtues and vices which in a 
fainter or milder aspect appear in other communions. An 
English High Churchman may be encouraged or discour- 
aged, as the case may be, at finding himself reproduced in 
vivid colours by a Scottish Free Churchman or Covenanter. 
An English Nonconformist may be warned or stimulated 
by seeing his likeness in an Anti-burgher, or a Cameronian. 
An English Latitudinarian may be comforted or troubled, 
as the case may be, by finding his close affinity with a Scot- 
tish Moderate. The well-known wish of the great Scottish 
poet is fulfilled by the lessons of Scottish Church history : 

0 that some fay the gift would gie us, 
To see ourselves as others see us. 

Perhaps the Scotsman may derive some of the blessings 
of this gift, when he hears himself described by an English- 
man. Certainly the Englishman may derive some of those 
blessings by seeing himself, as the case may be, caricatured 
or transfigured by a Scotsman. 

I propose then, in the following Lectures, to endeavour to pi ano fthe 
bring out some of these points in the different departments P^®^ fc 
of Scottish history. The present Lecture will be devoted to 
the somewhat complicated task of passing in review the 
early condition of Scottish religion. In so doing, it will be 
my object to obtain some glimpses into the ancient elements 
out of which the present ecclesiastical condition has arisen ; 
to show the identity of customs and sentiments between the 
earliest and the latest stages ; to mark the influence from 



22 



THE CELTIC CHUECH. 



LECT. I. 



first to last exercised by the southern kingdom through 
these channels, and to exhibit through the successive stages 
of the development of Episcopacy in Scotland, and the 
extremely entangled state of its relations to Presbyte- 
rianism. 

It is obvious that this can only be done in a discursive 
and disjointed manner, but the subject within the prescribed 
limits admits of no other treatment. 
The Celtic The first period then, is that of the earliest beginnings 
Church. o £ gcottjgk Christianity, from the fourth to the eleventh 
century. Let me first speak of the outward framework of 
the ecclesiastical constitution. The relation of early Pres- 
byterianism to early Episcopacy in Scotland is the more 
worth discussing because it forms part of a larger system 
which prevailed throughout Celtic Christendom. That there 
were persons bearing the name of bishop in the earliest 
Christian history of Scotland is undoubted. 1 But it is 
equally undoubted that they had no dioceses, no jurisdic- 
tion, no territorial episcopal succession. Their orders were 
repudiated by the prelates of England and France. 2 The 
primate of the Church of Scotland for the first three hundred 
The abba- years of its history was not a bishop but a presbyter — first 

tial sys- the abbot of Iona, 3 then of Dunkeld. The succession was 
tern. 

a succession, not of Episcopal hands, but of a dead pres- 
byter's relics. 4 Early bishops of St. Andrew's, Glasgow, 
and the like, figure in legends, but they had no existence in 
fact. 5 The abbot, not the bishop, was regarded as the ordi- 
nary ecclesiastical ruler, and the superiors of the various 
monasteries, by which the country was evangelised, looked 
to the chief abbot as the head of their whole church. It 
was, in fact, the same system as that which prevailed in 



> Grub, i. 139. 

2 Ibid. 127, 128. 

3 Ibid. 135. 



4 Ibid. 131. 

5 This is well put in Burton's His- 
tory of Scotland, i. 281. 



LECT. I. 



THE CELTIC CHURCH. 



23 



the ancient Irish Church, 1 of which some traces are still, 
even in the Latin Churches, to be seen in the all but epi- 
scopal power of the great Benedictine abbots of Monte 
Casino and La Cava. 

Thus much is acknowledged by all. It may be more 
doubtful, but it is still the most obvious inference from 
Bede's 2 narrative, that the abbots and presbyters of Iona 
actually ordained or consecrated the bishops whom they 
sent forth to England ; and it is therefore exceedingly pro- 
bable that the episcopal succession of the northern provinces 
of England has been deeply coloured by Presbyterian blood. 
It was the belief of the chief Scottish chronicler of the 
Middle Ages that these same exalted presbyters consecrated 3 
bishops, and crowned and consecrated kings. The first 
Christian rite of coronation is, in fact, derived from 
Colomba's coronation of the Celtic Chief of the Hebrides. 4 
That which in England was believed to be so inalienable 
a prerogative of the see of Canterbury that Becket shed 
his blood rather than concede it even to his brother primate 
of York, 5 was in Scotland yielded without a struggle by 
the whole of the Scottish Episcopate to a wild abbot fresh 
from Ireland. 

It is not to be inferred from this account, that the early 
ecclesiastical system of Scotland was like the modern. It 
was, no doubt, as unlike modern Presbyterian ism as it was 
unlike modern Episcopacy. The abbots were not bishops, 
but they were prelates. They were presbyters, but they 
had no presbyteries. Still it is possible that the subtle 
influence which ancient institutions exercise over far distant 



Ibid. 14. Lecture on the Three 
Irish Churches. Essays on Church 
a State, 382, 383. 

2 Bede, iv. 3, 5. This inference is 
contended by Mr. Grub (i. 151-] 57) in 
an able but not conclusive argument. 



3 Fordun's Scoti-Chronicon, vi. 49 ; 
Grub. i. 159. 

1 Adamnan, iii. 5. Martene, ii. 213. 

5 Memorials of Canterbury, 68, 69, 
78, 90, 125. 



24 



THE CELTIC CHURCH. 



LECT. I. 



ages may in this case have been not without its effect, 
and that when the earthquake came in which Episcopacy 
perished, the Scottish soil had been to a certain degree 
prepared for its overthrow by the fact, that the earliest 
evangelisers had not been bishops. 

There is another peculiar characteristic of this early 
period, which is specially to be seen in Scotland. Whatever 
remains there were of the early Celtic saints of England 
have long since perished. The one solitary name which 
figures in the ancient Christian history of England, is the 
martyr of the Roman city of Verulam, St. Alban. After 
him, no other ecclesiastical association exists, legendary or 
historical, if we except the obscure saints of Cornwall and 
Wales, till we reach Augustine. The memories of St. Botolph 
and St. Dunstan, of St. Edmund and St. Edward, although 
they retained a strong influence during long tracts of the 
middle ages, can hardly be said to have maintained their 
vitality to our own time. But in Scotland, even in spite 
of the vast counter wave of the Eeformation, the local 
attractions of these primitive missionaries still hold their 
ground, and their successive apparitions may well recall 
for a moment the various stages of the original Celtic faith. 
The first figure that distinctly emerges from the mists of 
fable in the pages 1 of Bede is the Cumbrian or Gralwegian 
saint of the White House, the first stone church of the 
Eoman camp of Leucophibia or Whithorn. 2 We can still 
see the ruined chapel on the lonely island promontory, the 
yet more ancient priory where his remains repose — once 
the spot to which kings and princes came 3 in pilgrimage 

1 Bede, iii. 4. Grub, i. 12. slight recollections of the instructive 

2 Is not ' Whithorn ' and possibly intercourse "with him during a de- 
£ Candida Casa' simply the Anglicised lightful visit to the 'holy places' of 
and Latinised form of Leucophibia ? G-alloway,in 1871, when he discovered 

3 Mr. Stuart of the Eegister House, the cross mentioned in the Lecture. 
Edinburgh, will, I trust, permit these 



lect. r. THE CELTIC CHURCH. 25 

across the trackless wilds of Galloway long after such toil- 
some devotions had ceased in England. We can explore 
the cave called by his name, which opens from beneath 
the samphire-covered cliff, undermined by the waves of 
Glenluce Bay ; and on which a rudely carved cross still St. Ninian. 
marks the original sanctity of the spot; where, following 
the practice of his master, St. Martin of Tours, he may 
well have retired for his devotions. These, and the churches 
and chapels which bear his name throughout Scotland are 
standing monuments of the once wide -spread power of the 
name of St. Ninian ; and to him alone, of all British saints, 
a coeval monument still points in unmistakable characters. 
Nowhere in Great Britain is there a Christian record so 
ancient as the grey weather-beaten column which now 
serves as the gatepost of the deserted churchyard of Kirk 
Madreen 1 on the bleak hill in the centre of the Einns of 
Galloway, and bearing on its battered surface, in letters 
of the fourth century, 2 the statement that it had marked 
the graves of three saints of Gallic name, Florentius, 
Vincentius, and Mavorius. Few, very few, have been the 
travellers that have reached that secluded monument ; long- 
may it stand as the first authentic trace of Christian civilisa- 
tion in these islands. 

Or, to pass from Galloway to Fifeshire, where in England g t- g ^ 
shall we find a hermitage so venerable as the caves which 
St. Serf scooped out for himself on the craggy £ desert ' 3 of 
the shores of the Firth of Forth, or on the romantic spot 
marked by the little chapel beneath the wooded hill of 
Culross, where he discovered the infant Kentigern, his darling 
Mungo ? Or, if we carry on the story of that wondrous 

1 Doubtless Mathurinus, the dis- return from Kome. 
ciple (according to the Roman Ha- 2 It is given at length in Mr. 

giology) of St. Martin of Tours, with Stuart's Sculptured Stones of Scot- 

whom, according to Bede, St, Ninian land. Plate lxxi. p. 36. 
himself had passed some time on his 3 ' Desertum,' the modern ' Dysart. 



26 



THE CELTIC CHURCH. 



LECT. 1. 



St. Mungo. child, what city of Great Britain bears, as its heraldic 
emblems, such a train of legendary associations as in the 
three miracles of St. Kentigern still retained on the shield 
of the great commercial city of Glasgow ? 1 Or what scene 
of ancient British missionary labours can we so vividly 
represent to ourselves as the circle of venerable trees on 
the banks of the Molendinar, 2 under whose shade sprang up 
the wooden church which the same Kentigern erected as 
the centre of that Cumbrian Christianity, which reached 
from St. Asaph to Stirling. 

And as we are led on, not by an episcopal but a true 
apostolical succession, from one of these saints to another, 
the legend of St. Kentigern carries us on to the first distinct 
and definite personage of the Scottish Church. To his retreat 
above the brawling millstream in what was even then a 
consecrated graveyard — the first germ of that vast cemetery, 
whence the statue of John Knox looks down over the 
teeming city of Glasgow 3 — came, according to tradition, to 
exchange their pastoral staves, the Abbot of Iona, the founder 
of the hierarchy which lasted for four hundred years, St. 
Columba. 4 The way of the holy hath been made light,' said 
the one. 4 The holy shall go,' cried the other, 4 from strength 
4 to strength — they all shall appear in Zion.' 4 

Let me say a few words concerning Iona, and concerning 
Columba. 

The natural features and the Celtic names still preserved 
in Iona 5 give us the complete framework of the earliest 

1 Burton, i. 24. a personal investigation of the locali- 

2 See the admirable article on ties of Iona in the summer of 1869. 
' Scottish Abbeys and Cathedrals,' by Since that time the results of a yet 
the lamented Joseph Eobertson in the more extended investigation of the 
Quarterly Review, lxxxv. 1 30. island and its history has been pub- 

3 Ibid. lished in a charming little volume by 

4 Montalembert's Monks of the its present noble owner— the Duke of 
West. Moines de V Occident, iii. 325. Argyll; to which I gladly refer for 

5 I have given here the results of more complete details on the subject. 



LECT. I. 



THE CELTIC CHURCH. 



authentic history of Scottish Christianity. We can trace 
Columba's arrival and sojourn here almost step by step. The Columba. 
northern coast of Ireland and the western coast of Cale- 
donia were to the dwellers on either side almost as one 
country — both were regarded as the land of the Scots. 
From the promontories of Antrim the Scottish shores are 
completely visible. When Columba left his native glens 
in Donegal, and his dear familiar oak groves of Derry, a 
banished, excommunicated man, these shores were to him the 
natural outlet of his zeal. He was to leave his own island ; 
but whilst he sought the nearest sphere of his future labours, 
it must also be one which placed him beyond the temptation 
of returning home. In the Hebridean group, the first which 
he reached was that formed by Jura with its three craggy 
' Paps,' and the two islands now called, we can hardly doubt, Iona. 
from himself and his companion, Colonsay 1 and Oransay. But 
from Colonsay Ireland was still visible. He could not trust 
himself within view of it. He, with his twelve companions, 
in their frail coracle, embarked once more. They pushed 
on across the open sea. In front there rose a pyramidal 
hill, which seemed to beckon them on. It was Dun-I, 
6 the hill of I, or Hy.' At the south end of the island there 
is a bay deep withdrawn behind a group of rocky islets that 
stand out above the waves. Between these rocks Columba 
drove his coracle, and found himself on a beach of the 
pure white sand, which is the glory of the shores of Iona, 
sprinkled with the green serpentine pebbles which pilgrims 
and travellers have long carried off as trophies. This is still 
called the Port of the Coracle, 2 and beneath the long low 

1 The parallel with Oransay seems cation of ' currach ' in composition, 
decisive as to the explanation, and When Johnson and Boswell came to 
though Colonsay is called ' Coloso ' the spot, they were perplexed by find- 
by Adamnan, this can only be from ing, as they thought, the English word 
the attempt to Latinise it. wherry in Port-a-wherry. Boswell's 

2 Port-a-hurrack, the Gaelic modifi - Johnson, iii. 34. 



28 



THE CELTIC CHURCH. 



LECT. 1. 



mound, slightly fenced around with cairns and stones, sixty 
feet long, is said to lie buried the original bark. Over- 
hanging this bay is a rocky hill, 1 which Columba climbed, 
and looked once more westward. Ireland was now invisible ; 
he felt himself secure. From this point, which was hence- 
forth to be called £ the Hill with the Back turned on Ireland,' 
he descended into the island which he was to make his 
own. He advanced across the low hills which part the Bay 
of the Coracle from the long plain which looks towards the 
Isle of Mull. Whatever may have led him in the first in- 
stance to Iona, it was the peculiarity of this plain which 
fixed his continuance there. He was in an island — removed 
from the immediate danger of attack from the savage High- 
land tribes — but still sufficiently within reach of the main- 
land (for such the Isle of Mull may, comparatively speaking, 
be called) to communicate with its inhabitants, and to 
receive provisions and communications from them. The 
strait is so narrow that the human voice could be heard 
across ; and one of the most frequent incidents in his life 
is that signals came of some expected or unexpected guest 
from the opposite shore. 6 Some one is coming over who 
' will upset my inkbottle ; ' and so it proved. Every trace 
of the actual habitations of Columba has perished ; but so 
unchanged are the natural features of the place that we 
can fix, if not the very spot on which he pitched his 
little hut, yet the close neighbourhood of it. It was, in all 
probability, the low knoll immediately above the humble 
inn of the modern village. There is a glen on the west of 
the island, over whose rocky walls hangs, in vast tresses, the 
ivy which was used to weave together the walls of the huts, 
built of the branches of thorn and briar which grow not 
far off. In this glen, and in others of like kind, Columba 

1 For these different allusions to structure of the huts, see Adamnan's 
the local features— locus eminentior Life of Columba. 
— in saltibus — the ivy — the wooden 



LECT. I. 



THE CELTIC CHURCH. 



29 



would retire at times from his little community to still 
deeper solitude. One of them is still called the Grlen of 
the Temple, and leads to the corn plain on the other side 
of the island, still, as in Columba's time, bearing the name 
of Machar or 6 Sandy Plain ; ' out of the midst of this rise 
two green hills. It is curious that to these and not to 
the towering peak of Dun-I, is attached the legend which 
invests the island with its most peculiar sanctity. Columba, 
in one of the retreats of which we have spoken, withdrew 
into this plain, forbidding any of his disciples to follow him. 
One of them, more curious than the rest, climbed a rocky 
point which runs out into the plain, and from thence 
reported that he saw Columba on the larger of the two 
hills holding converse with the angels. After the lapse of 
a thousand years that eminence is still called the 4 Knoll of 
6 the Angels,' 1 the same name which was given to it from 
this association within a hundred years of its supposed occur- 
rence. Nearer to the habitation of the saint cluster the local 
recollections of his last days. Winding along the slope of 
the shore, on which the little settlement was established, 
came the old white pony, which received his parting affec- 
tionate caresses on the eve of his death. 2 The scene of this 
event is in all probability marked by the one cross which 
remains standing in Iona, commonly called the cross of 
Maclean. Immediately above the settlement rises a sin- 
gularly marked and prominent knoll, which commands the 
whole Strait of Mull. This hill, still called the Tor Ab— the 
Hill of the Abbot — the first to whom that venerable name 
was given, is, we cannot doubt, the little hill — 6 the Mon- 
' ticellus,' which Columba, now enfeebled with age, climbed 
on the day before his death, and foretold its future fame. 

1 Cnoc Angel. It is also called of the "Fairies. The story is told in 
the Groat Hill of the Fairies, as the Adamnan, iii. 16 (Keeves, 257). 
smaller hill is called the Little Hill 2 Adamnan, iii. 23. 



30 



THE CELTIC CHURCH. 



L£CT. L 



What Columba was in Ireland I have elsewhere described. 1 
His mis- What he was in Scotland is unfortunately lost in a tissue of 

sion to 

Scotland, unmeaning miracles. But there is no reason to doubt the 
highly characteristic tradition that the evangelisation of 
Scotland was due in the first instance to a deadly quarrel 
between two Irish clans about the appropriation of a Psalter, 
and that the first apostle of Scotland was under the ban of 
the visible Church. The form which this part of the 
tradition assumes is full of interest. 

A council of the Irish clergy had met and driven him 
forth as an excommunicated outcast. In the council — so 
runs the story — was one of the two mysterious Irish saints 
who bore the name of Brendan. 2 Saint Brendan, when the 
excommunicated man appeared in the council, rose up and 
embraced him. The whole council burst into exclamations 
of horror. 6 You would do as I have done,' said Brendan ; 
4 and you would never have excommunicated him, if you 
6 saw what I see.' 3 

Such excommunicated men have been seen in Scotland and 
in England often since. They may be seen at this moment 
in Rome, in Paris, and in Munich. There was a freedom 
and justice in this old Celtic conception of true greatness, 
which even at this day we have hardly obtained. Columba 
is not the only excommunicated man who, to the eyes of the 
truly discerning, has had beside him angels, and before him 
a pillar of fire. Brendan was right in thinking, £ a pillar 
6 of fire before him and the angels of heaven beside him. 

1 ' The Three Irish Churches.' year, in which, for the one deed of 
(Lectures on Church and State,]). 384, mercy performed in his mortal life, 
386). he was allowed to retreat thither from 

2 Not, I fear, the one who, as beauti- the fires of hell. 

fully told in Matthew Arnold's Poems, 3 This other was the elder St. Bren- 

in his Arctic voyages had seen and dan, whose funeral, attended by angels, 

brought back the pathetic vision of was seen in a vision by Columba when 

Judas Iscariot, refreshing himself on in Iona. Montalembert's Moines de 

the iceberg in the one day in every V Occident, iii. 135. 



LECT. I. 



THE CELTIC CHURCH. 



31 



4 1 dare not disdain a man predestined by Grod to be the 
4 guide of an entire people to eternal life.' 

It is a story which teems with instruction. His career 
remains a glorious proof how the ban of the visible Church 
against the moving spirits of mankind may turn out to be 
vanity of vanities. Whatever the shortcomings of Columba, 
St. Brendan was right in saying, that we cannot afford to 
4 disdain a man predestined to be the evangeliser and apostle 
4 of such a nation as Scotland.' 

The other recollections of Iona are of a later age. The The 
Martyrs' Bay — the white beach opposite to Mull, which 
derives its name from the massacre of the natives by Danish 
pirates, is the spot on which the funeral processions from 
the surrounding islands have disembarked their mournful 
freights, and placed them on a rude mound at the curve 
of the shore. Thence they were borne, kings of Scotland, 
kings of Norway, lords of the Isles, to the cemetery con- 
secrated by the neighbourhood of Columba's bones, but 
deriving its name from his companion of dubious fame, 
the indiscreet Oran. It is the oldest regal cemetery of 
Great Britain — before Dunfermline, before Holyrood, before 
Westminster, before Windsor. It is further the most con- 
tinuously ancient cemetery of the world. In none other 
have the remains of the dead been laid through an unbroken 
track of one thousand three hundred years, beginning with 
Columba and his companions, ending with the shipwrecked 
mariners of a few years ago. 

And as it is the most venerable cemetery of the Celtic 
race, so also is it marked by that singular characteristic of 
Celtic countries — the union of tenacious reverence with 
reckless neglect, which only within our own time the care 
of the present owner, worthy of the precious possession en- 
trusted to his charge, has endeavoured to rectify and 
prevent. With Oran's cemetery ends the true historic 



32 



THE CELTIC CHURCH. 



L£CT. I 



connexion of Iona with Columba. The cathedral of Iona, 
with its Norman arches, carries us both by its style and its 
name to a region far removed from the first Celtic mis- 
sionary. The architecture tells of its origin from the half- 
Norman Margaret, under whose auspices the royal funerals 
were transferred from Iona to Dunfermline, indicating the 
transfer of sanctity from these western islands to the seat 
of Lowland government. The name of 4 cathedral ' tells 
how far the Church of Scotland had, in the fourteenth 
century, drifted away from the days when the abbot of 
Iona was supreme over the Hebrides, and when no episcopal 
chair had constituted any Scottish church into a cathedral. 
But of that long mediaeval history of Iona nothing, or 
next to nothing, has come down to us. The last historic 
picture which the sacred island presents us is but within fifty 
years of Columba's death, when the French Bishop Arculf, 
driven by stress of weather on his return from the Holy 
Land, found a refuge in the humble tenement of the Abbot 
Arculf and Adamnan, and where Adamnan took down from his mouth 
Adamnan. ^ e on iy description of Palestine that exists between the 
fall of the Eoman Empire and the Saracenic occupation. 
We see, as we read the disjointed record, the traveller telling, 
the abbot questioning, till the whole story was at last re- 
corded in its present rude form. 

It was not till the close of the eighteenth century that 
the fame of Columba once again attracted to these distant 
Dr. John- shores a pilgrim from the world of letters, as illustrious 
as ever was drawn from regal or episcopal thrones — and 
that the Holy Island received a new canonisation in the 
immortal sentence which now springs to the memory of 
every educated Englishman when Iona is named. 

4 We were now treading that illustrious island which 
4 was once the luminary of the Caledonian regions. That 
4 man is little to be envied whose patriotism will not 



LECT. I. 



ITS PECULIARITIES. 



33 



6 gain force on the plains of Marathon, or whose piety will 
4 not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona.' 

Before we finally quit this early period of the Scottish 
Church, I will venture to note two general features which 
link together the old and the new Scotland in a close con- 
nexion often little suspected. One is the fertility and rapidity 
of development equally displayed in the miraculous legends 
of the ancient and modern saints of Scotland. The miracles Miraculous 
of the early Scottish saints are not in themselves more fan- s ^^ r °* d 

tastic or marvellous than those which adorn the hagiology of l ater Scot- 
tish saints. 

England, or of the southern countries of Europe. But what 
gives them a singular interest is, that they are of the same 
kind as those which sprung up on the same soil twelve 
centuries later, in a theological atmosphere of the most 
opposite character. Even as regards the natural enthusiasm 
which gathered round their lives or their graves, there is no 
country in which the traveller passes, by such an immediate 
transition from the saints of the fourth century to those 
of the seventeenth, as when in Galloway he comes fresh 
from the grave of St. Ninian at one end of the Wigtonshire 
promontory, to the graves of Margaret Maclachlan and 
Margaret Wilson, who sleep in the churchyard above the 
Bladenoch at the other end. And when we read, that in 
heavy showers of rain St. Mnian rode on without a drop 
falling on his book of devotions 1 except when a light 
thought passed through his mind, and that Eobert Bruce 
the Covenanter made a long ride to Stirling under the same 
circumstances, perfectly dry, whilst his less godly companion 
was drenched to the skin, we feel at once that, though 
divided by the chasm of many generations, and by the widest 
revolutions of opinion, we are not only in the same physical 
atmosphere of endless mist and storm, but in the same 
spiritual 2 atmosphere of wild credulity and inexhaustible 

1 I owe this parallel to Mr. Stuart. 2 It is believed in Morayshire that, 

D 



34 



THE CELTIC CHURCH. 



LECT. I. 



Reverence 
for sacra- 
mental or- 
dinances 
in earlier 
and later 
times. 



imagination. Nowhere can the vexed questions of the 
miracles of religious history be better discussed than in 
Scotland, because nowhere do they appear so impartially 
repeated under the most diverse phases of theological 
thought ; because nowhere is it more evident that, whatever 
may be said either by orthodox or heterodox critics, historical 
facts can be disentangled from legendary accretions, and 
the repetition of the same incidents in these two most 
divergent epochs proves decisively that neither, on the 
one hand, do true facts necessitate the belief in the ac- 
companying dubious miracles, nor, on the other, need the 
questioning of dubious miracles discredit the truth of the 
facts or the nobleness of the characters connected with them. 

Another aspect of the same identity of sentiment between 
the earliest and the latest development of the Scottish 
Church is in regard to the doctrine of the Sacraments. 
Perhaps if there were any subject on which it might have 
been thought, that the rent of the Eeformation would have 
divided, by an impassable gulf, the past and the present 
history of Scotland, it would be the veneration for the 
Eucharist. Yet this is the very point in which a likeness 
starts to view such as would be vainly sought in any other 
country in Europe, over which a like change had passed. 
Let me give two examples. It was remarked in the eleventh 
century that one deeply-rooted feeling of the ancient 
Scottish Church, as represented by the Culdees, was the 
awful reverence for the sacrament, growing to such a pitch 
that, from mere terror of the ordinance, it had ceased to be 
celebrated, even at the great festival of Easter. 1 Such a 



at a funeral of a saint belonging to 
the so-called 'Men,' the Spey was mira- 
culously dried up to enable the pro- 
cession to cross just below the Boat 
of Garten Station, where a stone 
(since destroyed) was erected to com- 
memorate the event. Nothing of the 



kind has occurred in England since 
the legend of St. Alban. 

1 Grub,i. 195, 196. For a beautiful 
picture of the true reverence of a 
Presbyterian Sacrament in Scotland, 
see Principal Shairp's poem of Kil- 
mahoe. 



LECT. I. 



ITS PECULIARITIES. 



35 



sentiment, so overleaping itself, has perhaps never been 
equalled again, except in the Scotland of the nineteenth 
century. Those who know the influence of the ' Men ' in 
the Highlands tell us, that the same extravagant awe, causing 
an absolute repulsion from the sacred rite, is still to be found 
there. 1 Old grey-headed patriarchs are to be seen tottering 
with fear out of the church when the sacramental day comes 
round ; many refusing to be baptized, many more abstaining 
from the Eucharist altogether ; and at the time when the 
Veto Act was discussed, it was found incompatible with any 
regard to the rights of the parishioners to leave the election 
in the hands of the communicants, because in the extreme 
north (where the ' Men ' prevailed), out of a congrega- 
tion of several thousands, the communicants, from motives 
of excessive reverence, did not exceed a hundred. 2 

The other is a more pleasing incident. It is recorded 
that a poor half-witted boy in Forfarshire 3 clamoured in- 
cessantly to be allowed, as he expressed it, to partake of his 
Father's bread in the sacramental elements. At last the 
minister conceded the point. He partook ; and the same 
night, on returning from the Sacrament, he kept repeating^ 
in a rapture of reverence, £ I have seen the Pretty Mam' 
The next morning he was found dead in his bed. 

Let those who think that what are called high views of 
the Eucharist are peculiar to Episcopalian or Catholic 
Churches consider how in this affecting story is contained 
the spiritual element of the same sentiment which, in its 
grosser shape, has given birth to the miracle of Bolsena and 
the excesses of Transubstantiation. Let those who think 
scorn of the humble Presbyterian ordinances reflect how in 

1 Cunningham, i. 99. and it is also told in Dean Ramsay's 

2 Turner's History of the Secession, Reminiscences, 20th edit. p. 239. t 
182, 184. had already heard the story from 

3 This strange incident has been Mr. Erskine of Linlather, and I have 
turned into a little story, entitled been told that it occurred at Tannadine* 
Yeddie's First and Last Sacrament, between Forfar and Kerriemuir. 

D 2 



36 



THE MEDIEVAL CHUKCH. 



XECT. I. 



The 

Medieval 
hierarchy. 



Foreign 
influences. 



them the adoring veneration of the worshipper may be 
pitched in as lofty a key as beneath the dome of St. Peter's, 
or amidst the splendour of copes and chasubles. Is it too 
much to suppose that a subterranean current of Christian 
feeling has linked together the child and the man of 
Scottish history in this respect, more evidently than in 
the regions where otherwise the break has been less 
violent ? 1 

II. The second phase of Scottish religion is that which 
dates from the establishment of the Anglo-Norman hierarchy 
by Queen Margaret, and continues down to the Eeformation. 
There is one leading peculiarity of this period which, whilst 
it appears still more prominently in the third stage, on 
which we shall presently enter, belongs also in some degree 
to the first, which we are leaving. 

Scotland is, in some respects, essentially self-contained, 
and on this depends a large part of its ecclesiastical history, 
as we shall see in my next Lecture. Yet there is also a 
sense in which it is peculiarly dependent on other countries. 
Its geography almost lends itself to the connexion. Look 
at the three long fingers of Gralloway, reaching out into the 
sea till they almost clasp the coast of Cumberland and the 
Isle of Man and even the shores of Ireland. The kingdom of 
Strath-Clyde embraced in its folds the Cumbrian Churches 
and tribes on both sides of the Solway. That wild estuary 
was not a dividing boundary, but a highway of communica- 
tion for Ninian and for Kentigern (as well as for Bruce and 
for Gruy Mannering) to traverse in their passage to and fro 
on their familiar journeys or look at the Border. Cuthbert 



1 Even in detail some of the Eu- 
charistic controversies which agitate 
Episcopal Churches have broken out 
on the like questions in Scotland. 
There was in the last century a long 
ritual dispute between a presbyter and 
his presbytery exactly analogous to 



that which was recently raised by the 
English ritualists and their opponents, 
respecting the elevation of the conse- 
crated elements. It took the form of 
a schism between Lifters and Antilift- 
ers, which at last emerged in the Old 
and New Lights. 



LECT. I. 



ITS EXTRANEOUS ORIGIN. 



37 



was an English even more than he was a Scottish saint. 
His return from the highlands of Iona to his native low- 
lands of Melrose was a more decisive emigration than his 
wandering over the Cheviots to Lindisfarne. His own 
Eildon Hills brooded over him on the whole of his southern 
journey. Or look at Edinburgh itself. Who is it that 
gives the name to your own romantic town ? It is no 
Celtic chief — it is no descendant of Fergus or Fingal. It is 
the Northumbrian Edwin, the flrstfruits of Christian York- 
shire — the convert of the first English Primate of the 
North. And not only on England, but on France also, did 
Scotland lean, often as on a broken reed, even from her 
earliest days, both of Church and State. In Ninian's 
education at the centre of French Christianity in Tours, 
we have a dim foreshadowing of that long connexion which 
so deeply coloured the language and the architecture of 
Scotland through so many ages, and which, even in our 
own day, by a subtle sympathy, seemed to draw the heart of 
the Scottish nation, in spite of every political and ecclesi- 
astical difference, towards the fortunes of suffering France 
during the late war. But this adventitious influence was 
still more apparent in the period which we are now ap- 
proaching. The ancient Church had, although transported 
from a distance, become by the eleventh century thoroughly 
national. It was a Celtic Church, planted by Celtic mis- 
sionaries in a Celtic people. It was the 6 Scotland ' beyond 
the Irish Channel that gave its name and religion to the 
Scotland of Iona and Melrose. But the mediaeval Church 
was altogether a foreign intrusion, the more so from the 
fact, that it found a pre-existing Church to modify and 
subdue, and that it was imposed by Teutonic settlers on a 
Celtic population. 

As Iona indicates the purely Irish character of the Church 
of Columba, so the Queen's Ferry and St. Margaret's Hope 



38 



THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH. 



LECT. I. 



represent the purely English character of the Scottish 
Church of the Middle Ages. As across the Hebridean sea 
from Ireland came the ship which bore the first fortunes of 
Scottish Christianity, so up the recess of the Frith of Forth 
from England came the ship which bore the second. I need 
not repeat the romantic tale, how Margaret, the Saxon 
Princess, and her companions, 1 flying from the Norman 
conquerors, were driven ashore by stress of weather in the 
quiet bay which now bears her name ; how she toiled along 
the track towards the Celtic £ fortress by the winding stream ' 
where Malcolm with the Great Head was entrenched in the 
depth of his wooded glen ; how he found her seated on the 
stone which still may be seen on that same road by which she 
approached Dunfermline ; how he wooed and won her hand ; 
how she, with the arts of continental civilisation then just 
taking root in England, soothed and tamed her fierce 
husband ; how, under her guiding influence, rose the West- 
minster of Scotland, Dunfermline Abbey, the resting-place 
of kings, which henceforth diverted to itself for many gene- 
rations the glory which had hitherto belonged to Iona. There, 
beside Malcolm, at the east end of the church, her remains 
reposed. Thence, on the eve of the battle of Largs, it was 
believed by the Scots that the tombs of Dunfermline gave 
up their dead, and that there passed through its northern 
porch to 'war against the might of Norway' a lofty and 
6 blooming matron in royal attire, leading in her right hand 
' a noble knight, refulgent in arms, with a crown on his 
6 head, and followed by three heroic warriors, like armed, 
6 and like crowned.' 2 These were Margaret, and her consort, 
and her three sons, the founders of the mediaeval Church of 
Scotland. 6 What she began those three sons long continued 
* — the meek Edgar, the fierce Alexander, the saintly David , 

1 The whole story of St. Margaret is well told by Principal Shairp of St. 
Andrew's in Good Words, August, 1867. 2 Quart. Bev. lxxxv. p. 120. 



LECT. I. 



ITS EXTRANEOUS ORIGIN. 



39 



e Their aim was to assimilate the Scottish Church in all 
6 respects to the English.' 

Melrose, Holyrood, Kelso, Newbattle, Aberbrothock, Kin- English 
loss, Dryburgh, Jedburgh, and half the sees of Scotland, were lnfluences - 
founded by the third of these sons, and all these were based 
on an English model. The constitution of Glasgow and 
Dunkeld was copied from Salisbury, of Elgin and Aberdeen 
from Lincoln, Dunfermline from Canterbury, Coldingham 
from Durham, Melrose and Dundrennan from Eievaulx, 
Dryburgh from Alnwick, and Paisley from Wenlock. 1 

St. David, like his mother, was in all his thoughts and 
views an Englishman. The Church which they thus erected 
was, to all intents and purposes, an English Church, in the 
place of the old Celtic church of the Culdees. 

Perhaps the spot which most distinctly brings to light the See of St. 
transfer of the seat of Scottish ecclesiastical forms from Andrews - 
the Celtic west to the Anglicised east is St. Andrew's. It is 
dimly shadowed forth in the migration of Kenneth with his 
sacred stone from Dunstaffnage to Scone. It is traced more 
closely in the. steps by which the venerable sea-girt fast- 
ness rose to be the primatial throne of Scotland. The 
remnant of the old Culdee church on the extreme pro- 
montory of the Muckross, or Headland of the Wild Boar, 
has been long superseded by the vast adjacent pile of the 
metropolitan cathedral. That pile rests for its legendary 
basis on the relics of the new patron saint of Scotland, 
which St. Eule brought from Achaia in his sailless and 
oarless boat, but for its historical basis on the new growth 
of Norman and English influences which spread from Fife- 
shire over the whole of Lowland Scotland. 

So fully was the external origin of the national episcopate 
recognised, that the supreme jurisdiction over the Scottish 
bishops was vested partly in the Norwegian Archbishop of 

1 Quart. Rev. lxxxv. 117 ; Burton, ii. 62, 64. 



40 



THE MEDIEVAL CHUKCH. 



LECT-. I. 



Drontheim, partly in the English Archbishop of York. 1 It 
was not till the best of the mediaeval prelates of Scotland, 
Bishop Kennedy, had so illustrated the see of St. Andrew's 
by his statesmanship and his virtues, that this badge of the 
foreign extraction of the Scottish Church was finally re- 
jected, and that in 1472 it received for the first time a 
native primate. 2 

But the gaunt skeleton of the cathedral of St. Andrew's — 
the storm-vexed, shattered castle, which witnessed from 
without the execution of Wishart, and from within the 
murder of Beaton — hurries us to the close of the medieval 
Episcopacy of Scotland. 
The fall The fall, the tremendous fall, of the work of Margaret and 
Medieval David well indicates, from another point of view, its extra- 
Church. neous origin. The beginning of its decline dates from the 
hour when the power of England over Scotland was broken 
on the field of Banockburn. Then, when the English 
intrusive elements were driven back across the Border, the 
Scottish episcopate received its death-blow. In a double, 
in a treble, sense this may be traced. Partly the spirit of 
independence thus evoked rose, as we shall see, 3 against 
English interference. Partly, and by a more immediate 
result, the disorder into which the country was thrown, and 
the withdrawal of the civilising influences of England, led 
by degrees to the hideous and disproportionate corruption 
which took possession of the Scottish hierarchy during the 
last two centuries of its existence. This is an all-sufficient 
explanation for the wild 4 and disproportionate violence with 

1 Eobertson's Statuta Ecclesice Sco- buildings. Such a destruction doubtless 
Man®, Pref. p. cxi, cxii. took place at Perth and St. Andrew's. 

2 Grub, i. 377. But it was not general, and the ruins 

3 See Lecture II. which most immediately and con- 

4 I would not be understood here spicuously strike the eye of an Eng- 
to refer to the common belief of the lish traveller at Melrose, Dryburgh, 
indiscriminate destruction of sacred Jedburgh, and Kelso, were not the 



1ECT. 1. 



THE MODERN EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 



41 



which, beyond any other country in Europe, Scotland carried 
out the work of the Eeformation. 

III. We have now reached the third stage of our progress, The 
which begins at the point when this connexion between the Episcopal 
English and Scottish Churches was to be rent asunder, and Cnurch - 
when in the sixteenth century the new elements eventually 
were exploded, which formed what has been the purely 
National Church of Scotland. On this I shall enter here- 
after ; but for the present I still continue to track the 
struggle of Episcopacy and of the English connexion with the 
native influences at work in Scotland itself. 

All know the attempts of the Stuart Kings to revive 
Episcopacy after its interruption by the Eeformation. On 
the one hand it is curious to observe how, like the Episco- 
pate of Margaret and David, it was not of Scottish but of 
English growth. Archbishop Spottiswoode, from whom the Its English 
episcopal succession under James VI. took its rise, •was con- orlgin " 
secrated entirely by English hands in the private chapel of 
London House, and lies himself in Westminster Abbey. 
Archbishop Sharpe, from whom the second succession sprang, 
under Charles II., was equally the creation of English pre- 
lates in the same Abbey, in the Chapel of Henry VII. 

But, on the other hand, whether from policy or necessity, 
the whole settlement of modern Scottish Episcopacy was far 
more Presbyterian, far less Episcopal and Catholic, than in 
any country in Europe. Doubtless this was partly occa- 
sioned by the fact, that in England itself the sentiment 
towards Presbyterian Churches was far more generous and 
comprehensive in the century which followed the Eeforma- 
tion than it was in that which followed the Eestoration. 
The English Articles are so expressed as to include the 

work of Scottish fanatics, but of the What is meant is the extreme anta- 
Catholic English soldiers of Henry gonism to ancient usages, as set forth 
VIII. (see Quart. Rev. lxxv. 141-150). in Lecture II. 



42 



THE MODEKN EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 



LECT. r. 



recognition of Presbyterian ministers. The first English 
Act of Uniformity was passed with the express view of 
securing their services to the English Church. The first 
Its rela- English Eeformers, and the statesmen of Elizabeth, would 
Presby° have beSn astonished at any claim of exclusive sanctity for 
teriamsm. ^ Episcopal order. 1 But it was in Scotland that this mutual 
recognition was most apparent. John Knox had as little be- 
lief in the paramount and divine character of Presbyterianism 
as Cranmer had in the paramount and divine character of 
Episcopacy. So far from shunning connexion with the 
English Church, he eagerly sought to fortify its friendly 
relations with the Church of Scotland : so far from re- 
garding the contact with Prelacy as a soul-destroying abo- 
mination, almost his last signature, 6 with a dead hand but 
6 a glad heart,' 2 is subscribed beneath the name of the Arch- 
bishop of St. Andrew's. It was not Knox, but Andrew 
Melville, 3 who introduced into Scotland the divine right of 
Presbytery, the sister dogma of the divine right of Epis- 
copacy, which Bancroft and Laud introduced into England. 
But even after the mutual charities of the first age of the 
Reformation had been thus contracted, in Scotland, the two 
systems in practice flourished in the closest contact with 
each other. The Greneral Assembly, of which the constitu- 
tion had been inspired by Andrew Melville, continued to sit 
side by side with the hierarchy of James VI. 4 The Episco- 



1 See this well drawn out in Lord 
Macaulay's Correspondence with the 
Bishop of Exeter ; and in Principal 
Tulloch's article on the English and 
Scottish Churches in the Contemporary 
Beview, December 1871. 

2 See the signature to David Fer- 
gusson's sermon on Sacrilege {Tracts 
of David Fergusson, p. 80). The 
sermon itself which is thus recom- 
mended is also a remarkable proof of 
Knox's moderation. Communicated 



to me by the kindness of Lord Neaves. 

3 Compare Sir H. M. Well wood's 
Life of Er shine, 507. 

4 Cunningham, ii. 18. Even in the 
very acts of hostility this joint autho- 
rity was recognised. The deposition 
of the Bishops of Charles I. by the 
Greneral Assembly of Glasgow in 
1638 was recognised as an ecclesiasti- 
cal act, depriving] them not only of 
all civil, but of all spiritual autho- 
rity. See the interesting memoran- 



lect. i. ITS RELATIONS TO PRESBYTERIAJS T ISM. 



43 



palian curates in Charles II.'s reign were under the Pres- 
bytery, the Kirk session, and the Synod, with the Bishop 
presiding. 1 The Confession of Faith held by the Episcopal 
Church of Scotland was not that of the Episcopal Church of 
England ; it was substantially the same as the Confession of 
John Knox. 2 The Scottish Prayer-book (with one exception, 
that of the words of administering the Eucharistic elements) 
was not, as is often erroneously supposed by both sides, more 
Eoman and less Protestant than the English, but in all 
essential points was more Protestant and less Eoman. 
6 Presbyter ' was everywhere substituted for 6 Priest.' The 
Apocryphal Lessons were omitted. The service for the 
Eucharist embodied the true Protestant doctrine of spiritual 
sacrifice in the very centre of the consecration prayer far 
more prominently than is the case in the present English 
Prayer-book. 3 The consecration 4 itself was according to the 
Anti-Prelatic, not the Prelatic view of the subject. In the 
Ordination Service, as appointed under James VI., there was 
a marked exclusion 5 from the Ordination of Priests of the 
questionable words which, according to many devout Church- 
men, both of that time and our own, are fi the very essential 
6 words of conferring orders.' There was no form at all for 
the ordination of Deacons. 6 The Scottish Bishops of James VI. 
were not re-ordained in England. 7 Even the Scottish 
bishops of Charles II.'s time, 8 though they submitted to 
the ceremony, did so, as we shall see, at the advice of 



dum of Joseph Robertson, published 
in the Scottish Guardian of Feb. 1, 
1872, p. 71. 

1 Burton, i. 269. 

2 Innes's Law of Creeds in Scot- 
land, pp. 38, 639. 

3 See this well brought out in 
Bunsen's Christianity and Mankind, 
ii. 184-186. 

4 Scottish Liturgies, 109. 



6 It seems that perhaps the omis- 
sion was corrected under Charles I. 
(Scottish Liturgies, p. lix.) 

6 Grub, ii. 322-324, 368. 

7 Ibid. ii. 296. 

8 Ibid. iii. 128. Tillotson was 
ordained priest by one of these 
bishops, who himself, though he had 
received episcopal consecration, had 
never received episcopal ordination. 



44 



THE MODERN EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 



LECT. I. 



Leighton, on the ground that all such matters were wholly 
indifferent, and with one exception they never insisted on 
re-ordaining Scottish ministers 1 who had received Presby- 
terian ordination. The Prayer Book throughout the time 
of James VI. and Charles II. was never publicly used, except 
during the short time that the Princess Anne was with her 
father in Edinburgh. 2 The Episcopalian clergy and bishops 
preached and officiated in no peculiar dress, or else gene- 
rally in black gowns, as distinct from the blue gowns and 
broad blue bonnets of the Presbyterians. This is the real 
origin of 6 Black Prelacy ' and 4 True Blue Presbyterianism.' 3 
There was an Episcopal chapel in Forfarshire, where till 
quite recently the clergyman always officiated in black, 
and black serge was the only ecclesiastical vestment known 
at the beginning of this century in the Episcopal Church of 
Glasgow. The Communion was received sitting. The sign 
of the cross was not used in baptism. Extemporaneous 
instead of liturgical prayers were almost everywhere used. 
The requirement of tokens for the Eucharist, which was 
enjoined in the Scottish Prayer Book, is still in force in the 
Presbyterian Church, as well as in the older Episcopalian 
congregations of the north. In short, of all that now 
constitutes to the outward eye the main characteristics of 
Scottish Episcopacy, not one existed before the beginning of 
the eighteenth century. 4 The Episcopalian clergy, after the 
Eevolution, were quite willing to officiate in manses and 
churches side by side with their Presbyterian brethren. 5 
The nearly equal division of the country between them at 
that time, and the near approximation to an arrangement 

1 G-rub, iii. 218 ; see Lecture ILL Presbyterian by ordination ; Ruther- 

2 Cunningham, ii. 250. ford may have been, perhaps was, 

3 I owe this to the kindness of Dr. episcopalian by ordination. See the 
Crawfurd of Edinburgh. case argued in Life of Butherford, 

4 Burton, viii. 467. p. 38. 
6 Leighton, as we shall see, was 



LECT. I. 



ITS PERSECUTIONS. 



45 



which might have included both within the same Church, 
and which would probably have succeeded but for purely 
political difficulties 1 show how superficial after all were the 
differences which parted them. The earliest examples of 
the intrusion 2 of pastors by imperious patrons on unwilling 
congregations were not of Episcopalian or even Erastian 
incumbents on Presbyterian congregations, but of Presby- 
terian pastors on Episcopalian congregations. 

There remains to be considered the final aspect of the Its state 
Episcopal Church, when it was proscribed in its turn as it ti 0 n? r&6C 
had itself proscribed the Covenanters. In one sense, in- 
deed, it has never entirely lost its legal position. It was, 
and is still entitled the 4 Episcopal Communion, protected 
4 and allowed by an Act passed in the tenth year of the 
6 reign of Queen Anne, chapter seven.' In later years it 
received a small State endowment, only recently withdrawn 
from it. But during and after the Stuart Eebellion, it was 
visited by a hand almost as heavy as that which had rested 
on the Presbyterians at the close of the preceding century ; 
and it is a salutary warning to mutual forbearance when 
we read the very same adventures in the very same caves 
and moss hags — the very same apprehension of the lap- 
wings hovering near the place of their concealment, as had 
breathed through the legends of the Cameronians. 3 

From necessity, as well as from inclination, more and 
more the Episcopal communion shrank from its public place 
in the nation, except in the short periods when the Stuart 
Princes were for the moment in the ascendant. Carubbers 
Close was their metropolitan church. c I have been looking,' 
said Dundee, 6 for the primate of the Episcopal Church, and 
4 cannot find him ; he belongs to the Kirk Invisible.' 4 1 
belong,' says Pleydell in 4 Guy Mannering,' 4 to the suffering 



1 Grub, iii. 311-318 

2 Burton, viii. 220. 



3 Lord Medwyn's Life of Lord 
Pitdigo, p. 32. 



46 



THE MODERN EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 



LECT. I. 



6 Episcopal Church of Scotland, which is now — happily — the 
c shadow of a shade.' 1 

But there are three points during this dark and se- 
cluded period in which it was still thoroughly Scottish 
and thoroughly national. 

1. Its First, it shared to the full that peculiarity of Scottish 
divisions, religion which will appear most distinctly in my next 

Lecture — its violent divisions on points of the smallest 
dimensions. What Burghers and Anti-Burghers, Eelief and 
Secession, Old and New Lights were to the followers of John 
Knox, that the long disputes of Collegers 2 and Usagers, of 
old Episcopalians and new Episcopalians, of the Scottish and 
the English Communion Offices, often were to the followers 
of Laud and Sharpe. No ecclesiastical struggle, except that 
of the rival Popes, has more tried the Episcopal system 
than that in the month of June 1727, in Edinburgh, when 
the bishops of the two contending parties of Collegers and 
Usagers strove to outdo each other by consecrating and 
deposing rival bishops, so as to secure the point at issue, 
£ if not by equal arguments, yet by equal numbers.' 3 

2. An- Secondly, there was the antagonism to the English Church 
to g the &m anc ^ State. This, which in the Puritans was produced by 
Ch^'h 1 ^ 6 nos ^^y t° a Government which rejected the Covenant, 
and State, in the Episcopalians was produced by the hostility to a 

Grovernment which rejected the divine hereditary right of 
kings. 

In the time of the Stuart sovereigns, the Episcopalians of 
Scotland were almost as Erastian as their English brethren. 
But this gradually passed away ; the anti-Hanoverian ten- 
dencies of the Episcopal clergy gradually detached them 
from their ancient principles ; and the £ Usagers ' went to 
the length of throwing aside their loyalty to King James, 

1 In 1745 there were not more 2 See Grub, iii. 387 ; iv. 21-29. 
than 150 clergy in communion with 3 Skinner, ii. 644, 645. Cunning- 
the Scottish bishops. Grub, iv. 32. ham, ii. 398. Grub,_iv. 5, 6. 



LECT. I 



ITS PECULIARITIES. 



47 



for which their brethren the 4 Collegers ' were ready to sacri- 
fice everything. To a certain degree this feeling has lasted 
almost to our own day. The memory of the massacre of 
(xlencoe still lives in the Episcopalian inhabitants of the 
fatal valley, when it has expired elsewhere. Jacobitism and 
not Liberalism was and is the root of the Episcopalian jealousy 
of State interference. 1 It was with the utmost reluctance 
that, in the last century, the Scottish Episcopalians coidd be 
induced to accept the English articles, 2 or to hear the name 
of Greorge III. in the English Liturgy ; and no Presbyterians 
could have been more alarmed than they were at the en- 
croachments of the English clergy. 3 One of the solemn 
articles of agreement with the American bishop of Connec- 
ticut was, that the members of his church, when in Scotland, 
should hold no communion in sacred offices with those 4 per- 
6 sons who, under the pretence of ordination by an English 
? or an Irish bishop, do, or shall take upon them to, officiate 
' as clergymen in any part of the national Church of Scot- 
6 land, and whom the Scottish bishops cannot help looking 
£ upon as schismatical 4 intruders.' 

This leads me to the third characteristic, which has found 3. Its 
its home more completely in the Scottish Episcopalians than xoman 
in any other of the Church of Scotland more strictly so called, 
when, from being an aspiring or a dominant Church, it became 
a vanquished and persecuted communion ; when, for its at- 
tachment to the exiled Stuarts, it became the Church of the 
Jacobites and Nonjurors. No history of any European state 
has been so romantic as that of Scotland. Whatever 
England has to show of early romance pales -before the 

1 It was not without reason that in determining the future theological 

when a celebrated English divine career of Dr. Newman is powerfully 

wished to express his covert hostility described in his ' Apologia,' p. 70. 
to the doctrine of the connection of 2 Grrub, iv. 101, 115. 
Church and State, he did so under 3 Ibid. iv. 174. 
the assumed name of ' a Scottish Epis- 4 Ibid. iv. 94, 
copalian.' The effect of these 1 Letters ' 



48 



THE MODERN EPISCOPAL CHUECH. 



LECT. I. 



stories of Eobert Bruce and James V. What English abbey- 
can in this respect compete with Melrose ? what chapel with 
Rosslyn ? what city with Edinburgh ? What are the earliest 
efforts of English poetry — what are the triads of Wales, or 
the early songs of Ireland, compared with the romantic 
charm (whatever be their other merits or demerits) of the 
poems of Ossian ? It is this peculiar embodiment of Scottish 
character that Shakspeare has reproduced in 'Macbeth.' 
Whether or not he was in that band of actors who came to 
amuse King James VI. at Aberdeen, it is certain that he has 
caught the general air and tone of Scottish scenery and 
Scottish history : — the blasted heath, extending for leagues 
along the coast of Forres — the witches lingering in Scotland 
long after they had died out in the rest of Europe — the castles, 
haunted by deeds of blood, and by dead men's ghosts — the 
prophetic dooms of royal families and great houses ; — this is 
the very genius of Scotland, because it belongs to that 
weird, uncanny, magic world which has always enveloped 
Scotland as in a mist of wonders. And when that 'meet 
£ Nurse for a poetic child ' produced a second Shakspeare of 
her own, this was the atmosphere in which he was born and 
bred. Walter Scott had many greater qualities, which I 
shall describe before I conclude these Lectures ; but it was 
this 6 wizard note ' of the medieval past, with all its spells 
and glamours, that first woke 4 the Harp of the North ' to its 
special task. 

It is this element of which so large a share is reflected 
in the modern Episcopalian Church of Scotland. There 
are three great historic names which specially represent this 
passion, and which all belong to the stream of Episcopalian 
tradition. One is Mary Queen of Scots. Hers is a story 
which has become thoroughly national, yet certainly not 
Presbyterian — not even Protestant. To John Knox and 
Andrew Melville the name of the ill-fated Queen suggests 



LEOT. I. 



ITS PECULIARITIES. 



49 



the idea of a perfidious and abandoned murderess. It is 
by the ancient Catholic, by the modern Episcopalian party 
in Scotland, that the fire of veneration for the unfortunate 
Mary has been kept alive. The next is Dundee. 1 The inte- 
rest which gathers round the last exploits of Claverhouse — 
which glorifies the Pass of Killikrankie, and which has en- 
kindled all the fury of chivalrous defence in his behalf, even 
within our own time, is purely and exclusively Episcopalian. 
He is the hero of the fallen cause. He was lamented by the 
Episcopalian party as the last of the Grahams, the last of 
the Scots, the last (in their eyes) of all that was greatest in 
his native country. 2 The third is Charles Edward. His 
career is not only the last great romance of Scotland, it is 
almost the last romance of Europe. Eound his name — round 
his career — cling the last traditions of Highland fidelity, 
of mediaeval adventure, of soul-stirring ballad ; and they 
were interwoven with the innermost fibres of the Scottish 
Episcopal Church in the eighteenth century. 

No doubt each of these is but a questionable idol. The 
Church which worshipped at the shrine of Mary Stuart, of 
Claverhouse, and of Charles Edward, could hardly be said to 
have reached the highest ideal of Christian excellence. In 
the whole Stuart and Jacobite cause there was (as every 
reader of Waverley may see) a worldly, weak, and trivial 
side. But there was also a noble, a chivalrous, a poetic 
side ; and of this the Episcopalian gentry and the Episco- 
palian clergy were the chief depositaries. 3 Who that had 
ever seen the delightful castle of Fingask — explored its in- 
exhaustible collection of Jacobite relics, known its Jacobite 
inmates, and heard its Jacobite songs, did not feel himself 

1 He is said to have been the first with these same subjects, the noble 
intelligent admirer of Ossian. Burton, band of Scottish antiquaries living 
viii. 104. and dead, some of the most distin- 

2 Scott, History of Scotland, ii. 115. guished of whom have been Episco- 

3 Let me also name, in connexion palians. 

E 



50 



THE MODERN EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 



LECT. I. 



transported to an older world, with the fond remembrance of 
a past age, of a lost love, of a dear though vanquished 
cause ? Who is the Scotsman — who is the Presbyterian, that 
is not moved by the outburst of Jacobite, Episcopalian enthu- 
siasm which enkindled the last flicker of expiring genius, 
when Walter Scott murmured the lay of Prince Charlie on 
the hills of Pausilippo, and stood wrapt in silent devotion 
before the tomb of the Stuarts in St. Peter. 

Let me, in parting from this period of Scottish history, 
take two examples of its peculiar fruits. No Church is 
worth celebrating which has not borne some choice mani- 
festation of the Christian life. Every Church, however li- 
mited, is worth describing, which has borne any such as, 
humanly speaking, we should not have had but for its 
influence. 

Lord Pit- One is a layman, Alexander Forbes — Lord Pitsligo. If, 
slig0 ' as I have heard it said, he is the original of the 'Baron 
of Bradwardine,' he is sufficiently known to all the world. 
But we cannot imagine a more gracious and attractive speci- 
men of that type of character of which I have been speaking, 
than is presented to us in the little volume published 
by his kinsman Lord Medwyn. His hair-breadth escapes I 
leave to be read in those pages. But his kindly, generous 
feelings towards his opponents, the mystical piety which he 
had learned in France from Fenelon and Madame Ghiyon, 
the unostentatious sincerity which made his presence at 
the Episcopal chapel the signal for a general sympathy of 
devotion, are the true glory of the Episcopal Church of that 
time. When, in spite of his age and infirmities, he de- 
termined to join Charles Edward at Aberdeen, he believed 
that he was simply obeying the call of God. When the 
little party of horsemen assembled, he rode to the front, took 
off his hat, and, looking up to heaven, said, £ Lord, Thou 
c knowest our cause is just. March, gentlemen.' ' It seemed,' 

1 See Lord Houghton's Poems. 



LECT. I. 



ITS PECULIAEITIES. 



51 



says one who was present when he joined the army, 6 as if 
* religion, virtue, and justice were entering the camp with 
4 this venerable old man.' 

If Lord Pitsligo may be taken as a choice specimen of 
the old Episcopalian laity, Bishop Jolly may be taken as a Bishop 
choice specimen of the old Episcopalian clergy. He was a Jolly * 
man, of whom it was wittily observed by one of his abler and 
younger brethren still living, 'that he had a reason for 
4 nothing, and an authority for everything ; ' who, when he 
was asked at the beginning of the stir occasioned by the 
Oxford Tracts, what he thought of the Eeformation, said 
that 4 he had not come down so far in his regular course of 
4 Ecclesiastical history.' 6 You go,' said an American tra- 
veller, 4 from the extremity of Britain to see the Falls of 
4 Niagara, and think yourselves amply rewarded. If I had 
4 come from America to Aberdeen, and seen nothing but 
4 Bishop Jolly, as I saw him for two days, I should hold my- 
4 self fully rewarded. In our new country we have no such 
4 men ; and I could not have imagined such without seeing 
4 him. The race, I fear, is expired or expiring even among 
4 you.' His departure was like his life. The last book which 
he held in his hand on the evening before his death, was 
Sutton's treatise, 4 Disce Mori ;' and he was found, alone, with 
his hands crossed on his bresCst, and his countenance serene 
in death. 

Doubtless the primitive simplicity, the gentleness, the 
quiet retiring holiness which so struck the Transatlantic tra- 
veller in the aged bishop, was shared by many others in the 
Episcopalian households of Scotland high and low. Perhaps 
of this whole type of character it may be said, that it is 
expired or expiring. But it was a precious and peculiar 
spectacle in those rough rude times ; it is for us at least 
to cherish the memory of it. 

1 Grub, iv. 190. 
b 2 



52 



THE MODERN EPISCOPAL CHURCH. lect. t. 



IV. These, then, were some of the latest peculiarities of 
the Episcopal Church of Scotland in the century that is gone. 
I would venture to say a few words on its peculiarity, rather, 
let me say, its peculiar mission, in this. It has ceased to be 
half Presbyterian, as it was in the seventeenth century. It 
has ceased to be Jacobite, as it was in the eighteenth. It 
is now, for the most part, and for practical purposes, a branch 
of the English Church in Scotland ; for the benefit of the 
English settlers, or of Scotsmen with an English education. 
Native congregations of Episcopalians doubtless exist, the 
descendants of those Jacobites and Nonjurors of whom I 
have just spoken. Individuals have migrated from Scot- 
tish Presbyterian families, under the changed circumstances 
of later times. But the larger section of the Scottish Episco- 
pal communion derive their importance from the new in- 
fluences that I have indicated, and from the connexion, 
once so much dreaded, but now so much encouraged, between 
themselves and the Church of England. 

In this, as we have seen, lies the true continuity of its 
connexion with the historical past ; in this lies its interest in 
the coming future. The increased intercourse between the 
two countries has increased and fostered its strength, its 
numbers, and its wealth. If it were so ill-advised as to 
make use of this its new situation to claim in Scotland an 
exclusive and national position — if it. were to affect to dis- 
dain and ignore the Church of Scotland, by the side of 
which it has been allowed freely to expand itself — if it were 
to employ its relations towards England to divide the 
Scottish rich from the Scottish poor, the past from the present 
history of Scottish religion— if it were to lend itself as a 
field for the eccentricities of 1 disaffected English clergy, then, 
indeed, we might look back with regret to the time when 

1 It was "but fair to say that on the was made, it was frustrated by the 
two chief occasions when this attempt leaders of the Episcopal Church it-self. 



LECT. I. 



ITS PRESENT MISSION. 



53 



the greatest of its members rejoiced to think that it was 6 but 
the shadow of a shade.' But if, following the counsels 1 of its 
most venerable and most gifted leaders, it were to regard 
itself as a supplement to the needs of the National Church 
— if it should be willing ' to interchange with that Church all 
6 good offices, whether of charity or religion, without compro- 
6 mise of its own principles ' — if it should aid the generous 
efforts of the National Church to promote that intercourse — 
if it should thus encourage in Scotland the knowledge that 
Christianity can exist outside of the Presbyterian Church, as 
well as within it — if it can keep alive in Scotland, by its 
own example, a sense of English art, of English toleration, 
and of English literature, if it continued to discharge the 
office which from time to time it has fulfilled during its 
simpler and humbler days, of presenting Christian life and 
Christian truth under that softer, gentler, more refined 
aspect, which its native Gaelic, 2 and its foreign English 
elements have alike conspired to produce, then the Church 
of Scotland may hail in it a not unimportant auxiliary for 
the transmission of the same beneficent influences from our 
southern civilisation that were once conveyed by Queen Mar- 
garet and her three sons, that were eagerly cherished by 
John Knox, and that were desired and, in great measure, 
obtained, by the eminent statesmen who cemented the union 
of the two Kingdoms. 

1 See especially the close of the 2 For this singular delicacy of the 

20th edition of Reminiscences of Scot- old Celtic race, see Bishop Ewing's 

tish Life and Character, by Dean Celtic Church of the West Highlands, 

Eamsay, pp. 320-325. p. 8. 



LECTURE II. 



THE CHUKCH OF SCOTLAND, THE COVENANT, AND 
THE SECEDING CHUBCHES. 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE PHILOSOPHICAL INSTITUTE, 
JAN. 9, 1872. 



LECTURE II. 



THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND, THE COVENANT, AND THE 
SECEDING CHURCHES. 

In this and the ensuing Lectures I proceed to speak of 

the Church of Scotland, properly so called. In the mouth 

of an English Churchman, no less than of an impartial 

historian, I need not say that this can only mean the Church 

as established by law. It is this for which every English 

churchman is asked to pray, by the canons of the English 

Convocation, which enjoin that prayers are to be offered up 

4 for Christ's Holy Catholic Church, that is, for the whole 

6 congregation of Christians dispersed throughout the world, 

4 especially for the Churches of England, Scotland, and 

4 Ireland.' 4 There can be no doubt,' says the candid and 

accurate annalist of Scottish Episcopacy, 4 that the framers 

4 of this have meant to acknowledge the northern ecclesiastical 

4 establishment, at that time Presbyterian, as a Christian The 

4 Church. . . With the exception of the Eoman Catholics, scotknd°[s 

4 it was the only Christian communion then existing in ^ e 

J & tional Es- 

4 Scotland, and questions regarding any other state of tablished 

4 matters than that actually before them could not have oc- 
4 curred to the Convocation.' 1 It is this also which is re- 
cognised in the most solemn form by the British Consti- 
tution. The very first declaration which the Sovereign 
makes — taking precedence even of the recognition of the 
rights and liberties of the English Church and nation, which 
are postponed till the day of the coronation — is that in 

1 See the discussion on the Canons of 1603 in Grub, ii. 282. 



58 



THE CHUKCH OF SCOTLAND. 



LECT. II. 



which, on the day of the accession the Sovereign declares 
that he or she will maintain inviolate and intact the Church 
of Scotland. That which was signed by Her Majesty may 
be seen in the Eegister House of Edinburgh, and has the 
peculiar interest of being the first signature of her name as 
Queen. There is a large blank left, in the doubt which was 
then not yet solved, whether one or more of her names would 
be used, and the single name therefore stands — alone of all 
her signatures — in a space too ample for the word; and 
immediately following comes, after the signature of the 
Princes of the Blood Eoyal, the name of the dignified and 
cautious Primate who then filled the see of Canterbury. In 
the Act of Union itself, which prescribes this declaration, the 
same securities are throughout exacted for the Church of 
Scotland as were exacted for the Church of England ; and it 
is on record that, when that Act was passed, and some 
question arose amongst the Peers as to the propriety of so 
complete a recognition of the Presbyterian Church, the then 
Primate of all England, the 6 old rock,' as he was called, 
Archbishop Tenison, rose, and said with a weight which 
carried all objections before it, 6 The narrow notions of all 
4 Churches have been their ruin. I believe that the Church 
' of Scotland, though not so perfect as ours, is as true a 
4 Protestant Church as the Church of England.' 1 

No Scotsman, no Englishman can see the meeting of the 
General Assembly in Edinburgh without feeling that it is 
the chief national institution of the northern Kingdom. No 
other ecclesiastical assembly in the realm meets with such a 
solemn and distinct recognition, with such a pomp and 
circumstance of royalty, with such a well-ordered and well- 
understood tradition of rights and privileges and duties. 

What is thus legally acknowledged receives a yet further 
confirmation in the common parlance even of unwilling wit- 
1 Carstairs' State Papers, 739, 760. 



LECT. II. 



SENSE OF THE WORD. 



59 



nesses. It is sometimes the custom of English Churchmen 
and Scottish Episcopalians, to distinguish in Scotland be- 
tween 4 the Church ' and 6 the Kirk,' meaning by the former 
the Episcopalian, and by the latter the Presbyterian system. 
It is difficult to imagine a more complete testimony to the 
national character of the Presbyterian Church than this sur- 
render to it of the true Scottish name of the Church itself. 
The 4 Kirk,' whatever the word may mean in English, in 
Scotland means 6 the Church ' as truly as figlise in French, 
or Ghiesa in Italian. To speak of the Presbyterian com- 
munity as c the Kirk,' and the Episcopalian community as 
' the Church,' is in fact to say that the Presbyterian com- 
munity is the national Church of Scotland, and the Episco- 
palian community an offshoot of the Church of England. 

I shall therefore not hesitate to speak of ' the Church of 
' Scotland ' in its more peculiar and proper sense, as that 
which, under divers changes, has settled down into the great 
Presbyterian Church of North Britain. 

I have, however, already intimated, that I thus use the word 
the more readily because, in a certain sense, it embraces all 
the various branches into which it has at times been 
divided, and because, in so speaking, we are brought face to 
face with one of the most singular features of the Scottish 
Presbyterian Church, namely, its marvellous outward unifor- 
mity. The Church of England, no doubt, in the largest legal 
sense, includes alike all Englishmen, whether conforming or 
non-conforming ; but whereas in England every branch of the 
vast religious community, so called, has its own peculiar con- 
stitution — and the Convocation, the Thirty-Nine Articles, the 
Prayer Book of the Established Church ; the Conference of 
the Wesleyans, with its 6 Conferential ' books ; the Congre- 
gational Union of the Independents ; the monthly meetings 
of the Quakers ; — whereas, even in the Established Church, 
the ritual, in spite of the Act of Uniformity, varies from the 



60 



THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. 



LECT. II. 



Its unity, majestic splendour of St. Paul's Cathedral to the elaborate 
ceremonial of St. Alban's, Holborn, and the simplicity of the 
ordinary parish church — in Scotland, on the other hand, with 
very rare exceptions, all the Presbyterian communions acknow- 
ledge not only the same Westminster Confession, the same 
Directory, the same Longer and Shorter Catechisms, but also 
the same form of Presbytery, Kirk Session, and General 
Assembly, the same dress, the same order of Divine worship, 
the same gestures in prayer and praise, the same form in 
the sacramental ordinances, the same observances at the 
burial of the dead. It is a uniformity which Eome might 
have enjoined, and which England might envy. 

Its divi- But, combined with this phenomenon, emerges the not less 
curious and instructive fact that, within this outward unity 
has arisen an amount of inward diversity and estrangement 
which England, with her multifarious sects, and even Eome, 
with the internecine war of her internal dissensions, can 
hardly equal or surpass. This is a fact which, under any 
circumstances, is full of interest. 

Every Church, whether Catholic or Protestant, may 
always learn a useful lesson from the contemplation of any 
instance which brings out the essential difference between 
external and dogmatic union on the one side, and inward 
spiritual union on the other side. The Church of Scotland 
is, in this respect, like a city set on a hill for the wonder of 
all the Churches of Europe, even before we descend into the 
causes and consequences of the phenomenon. It is this 
task which we now undertake. 

The general fact is that, within the National Church of 
Scotland, as within the character of the Scottish people, 
there are two separate tendencies — one of an uniting, com- 
prehensive character, which I shall consider at length in my 
third Lecture ; the other of a dividing, antagonistic cha- 
racter, of which I shall treat in the present. 



LECT. II. 



ITS INDEPENDENCE. 



61 



It will be my object, therefore, to penetrate beneath the 
surface of the Presbyterian platform which the Scottish 
Church has in common with the Protestant Churches of 
Greneva, Holland, France, and Germany — to discover, if pos- 
sible, those elements of the Scottish national character which 
form, as it were, the backbone of its ecclesiastical constitu- 
tion, and which, though appearing from time to time in the 
Established, or even the Episcopalian Church, are best seen in 
those outlying sections which, claiming each to be the Church 
of Scotland, exhibit in the most salient, but therefore the 
most patent and unmistakable forms, the strength and the 
weakness of Scottish religion. As in speaking of Scottish 
Episcopacy, so in speaking of Scottish Presbyterianism, it 
will be understood that I dwell not on the general life and 
belief common to all Christian Churches alike, but on those 
peculiarities which distinguish each from each. 

I. The first feature then which marks the Scottish reli- National 
gion of the last three centuries is its stubborn independence. inde P end - 

° 1 ence. 

When James VI. saw in London Mrs. Welsh, the 

daughter of John Knox, he asked her how many bairns her 

father had left, and whether they were lads or lasses. She 

answered 6 Three,' and that they were all lasses. ' Grod be 

thanked ! ' said the King, lifting up both his hands ; 6 for if 

6 they had been three lads, I never could have brooked my 

6 three kingdoms in peace.' 1 

The feeling of King James towards John Knox and his 
actual children may well have been felt at times by many 
reasonable men towards his spiritual children. Had each 
of the three Kingdoms been inhabited by a Church as sturdy 
and as unmanageable as that which took up its abode in 
Scotland, it may be easily believed that the rulers of Great 
Britain would have had no light task before them. 

This independence of the Scottish Church belongs in fact 

1 Cunningham, ii. 43. 



62 



THE CHUJRCH OF SCOTLAND. 



LECT. II. 



to the independence of the Scottish race. It was nurtured, 
if not produced, by the long struggle first of Wallace and then 
of Bruce, which gave to the whole character of the people 
a defiant self-reliance, such as, perhaps, is equally impressed 
on no other kingdom in Europe. The patriotism and the 
ecclesiastical exclusiveness of Davie Deans in the 4 Heart of 
4 Midlothian,' flow in the same indivisible channel. 4 Well, 
4 said that judicious Christian worthy, John Livingstone 

4 that, howbeit he thought Scotland a Grehenna of 

4 wickedness when he was at home, yet when he was abroad 
4 he accounted it as a paradise. For the evils of Scot- 
4 land he found everywhere, and the good of Scotland he 
4 found nowhere.' And when Jeanie Deans shrinks from 
giving up the slayer of Porteous, it is because her religious 
education had made her regard it as an act of treason 
against the independence of Scotland. 4 With the fanaticism 
4 of the Scottish Presbyterians there was always mingled a 
4 glow of national feeling, and she trembled at the idea of 
4 her name being handed down to posterity with that of 
4 the 44 fause Menteith." ' Burns' imaginary address of Bruce 
at Banockburn is but the counterpart of the genuine song 
of the Covenanters at Dunselaw : 

That all the warld may see 
There 's nane in the right but we, 
Of the auld Scottish nation. 

The badge of the Church of Scotland — the Burning 
Bush, 4 burning but not consumed ' — is as true a type of 
Scotland's inexpugnable defence of her ancient liberties, 
as it was of the ancient Jewish Church and people on 
their emergence from Egyptian bondage. And so the early 
history of the Scottish Presbyterian Church has been one 
long struggle of dogged resistance to superior power. 4 Scot- 
4 land must be rid of Scotland, unless we gain deliverance,' 
was the dying speech of the martyr Renwick. 1 

1 Wodrow. 



LECT. II. 



ITS INDEPENDENCE. 



63 



Many of the Scottish sects have in later times drifted 
into the doctrine of an imaginary separation from the 
State and Nation. Nothing can be more unjust to them- 
selves, or more untrue to history. Their independence 
is as secular, as political, as national, as ever was the 
compliance of the most latitudinarian of Erastians. It is 
this antique splendour which casts a halo round the Scottish 
struggle for independence, even when we least approve of 
it. It was magnificent in the struggle of John Knox against 
all the fascinations of Queen Mary. It was magnificent in 
the struggle of Andrew Melville against James VI. It was 
magnificent, even if somewhat grotesque, in the struggle 
of the whole people against Laud and Charles I. It was 
magnificent in the still more fiery struggle of the Cove- 
nanters against Claverhouse and Lauderdale. It was mag- 
nificent when passing over into the Episcopalian Church it 
strove against William III. at Killikrankie, or against 
George II. at Prestonpans and Culloden. It magnificently 
combined both the extreme Episcopalians and the extreme 
Presbyterians in its unavailing 1 protests against the en- 
deavours of the wisest statesmen of England and Scotland to 
bring about the union of the two countries. It was mag- 
nificent even when carried to a pitch of extravagance of 
dissent unequalled by any other nation in the various en- 
trenchments occupied by the Covenanters, by the Secession, 
by the Eelief, by the Old Lights, by the New Lights, by 
the Collegers, by the Usagers, by the Burghers, by the 
Anti-burghers, by the Free Church, and by the United Pres- 
byterians, against the Established Church, and against each 
other, in every one of the contests in which each separating 
communion maintained that it, and it alone, was the true 
Church of Scotland. 

1 See the lively description of this of Lectures at the Philosophical In- 
opposition in the hrilliant Lecture on stitute in 1871 was opened by Lord 
' the Union/ with which the course Kosebery. 



64 



THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. 



LECT. II. 



The main peculiarity of dissent in Scotland has been 
that it was not properly dissent at all, and that it earnestly 
repudiated the name. English Nonconformists pride them- 
selves on their Nonconformity ; but Scottish Nonconformists 
pride themselves on their churchmanship. In this respect 
they are like the Dissenters of Eussia. They are, indeed, 
with the exception of the Eussian Dissenters, the most 
conservative of all ecclesiastical bodies. 1 They looked not 
forward to an age of progress, but backward to a golden 
age of purity — the triumphant Church from 1636 to 1680. 
Their claim of identity with the doctrine, discipline, and 
worship of the Church of Scotland was the very cause of 
their separation. They seceded not from the Church itself, 
but from the majorities of the Church, fi out of a regard to 
6 the Church's honour and faithfulness ; and their bitterness 
6 was the perverted flow of love.' 2 

By one of those strange contradictions which we often 
find in ecclesiastical and political movements, these elements, 
which in their own nature are in the highest degree re- 
trogressive and conservative, have become mixed up with 
what is called a Liberal movement ; and the cause which 
has for its watchwords the names of Freedom and Progress 
has for its weapons the sword and shield of the narrowest 
of all beliefs, and the most retrograde of all philosophies. 
Yet there still lives at the bottom of this tendency of the 
Scottish character a virtue, most highly to be valued, 
most necessary for these times especially, whether in the 
ranks of Conservatives or Liberals ; and that is the force 
of unyielding conviction, the courage to resist external pres- 
sure — whether of the many or of the few — the determina- 
tion of James Fitz-James : — 

Come one, come all — this rock shall fly 
From its firm base as soon as I. 



1 Lectures on the Eastern Church. 2 Innes's Law of Creeds in Scot- 
Lecture XII. land, p. 246. 



LECT. II. 



ITS INDEPENDENCE. 



All honour to Scottish churchmen for the stubbornness of 
their fight, their devotion of themselves not only to death, 
but, at times, even to absurdity, for what were deemed 
the rights of conscience and the sacredness of truth and 
the glory of Scotland. 

When we descend from the general grandeur of the cause 
to the principles at stake, the story, if less imposing, is still 
exceedingly instructive. 

1. There are three features of these Scottish ecclesiastical Negative 
struggles which pervade their whole history. The first is cha:racter 
their almost entirely negative character. We often hear, 
in modern times, of the evils of negative theology. It is 
an objection which is sometimes overstrained, for in order 
to promote truth we must remove error, and every removal 
of error is a negation. Still, whether for good or evil, no 
Church has so abounded in purely negative theology as the 
Scottish. It is the only Church which produced by name 
a 4 Negative Confession of Faith,' 1 containing only the doc- 
trines which were not to be believed, instead of the doctrines 
which are to be believed. In order to see any likeness to 
it we must go back to the Fourth Council of Toledo, and 
study the creed of the Visigothic King Eeccared, which con- 
sists from first to last of nothing but anathemas. 2 It is the 
only Protestant Church which has even amongst its more 
temperate forms of subscription not only assertions of truths 
to be embraced, but an enumeration of errors to be con- 
demned. 4 Do you disown all Popish, Arian> Socinian, 
4 Arminian, Bourignian, 3 and other doctrines, tenets, and 
4 opinions whatever, contrary to and inconsistent with the 



1 The name given to the 1 National 
' Covenant ' of 1580. Innes's Law of 
Creeds, p. 36. Cunningham, i. 448. 

2 Harduin's Councils, iii. 473. 

3 The denunciation of the innocent 
Antonia Bourignon, which was the 



last added (Cunningham, ii. 325), has 
been the first dropped. The rigid 
Eree Church, in this respect alone 
freer than the Established, allows of 
the orthodoxy of this good, though 
eccentric, French lady who taught it. 



66 



THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. 



LECT. II. 



4 Confession of Faith?' It is the only Church which could 
boast of a branch professing to be the purest section of the 
Church, known by the simple and convenient name of 
No. The Presbyterian AV/i-Jurors were for many years 
characteristically and gravely designated by the simple 
name of Nous. 1 The 4 dying testimonies,' as well as the 
living creed, of this purest of Presbyterian Churches were all 
couched in this uniformly antagonistic form. 

4 1 leave my protest,' says a stern Cameronian, in the middle 
of the last century, 'against all sectarian errors, heresies, 
4 and blasphemies, particularly against Arianism, Erastianism, 
4 Socinianism, Quakerism, Deism, Bourignianism, Familism, 
8 Scepticism, Arminianism, Lutheranism, Brownism, Bax- 
4 terianism, Anabaptism, Millennarianism, Pelagianism, 
4 Campbellianism, Whitfieldianism, Latitudinarianism, and 
4 Independency, and all other sects and sorts that maintain 
4 any error, heresy, or blasphemy that is contrary to the 
4 Word of Grod, &c, and all erroneous speeches vented from 
4 pulpits, pages, or in public or private discourses ; and 
4 against all toleration granted or given at any time, in 
4 favour of these or any other errors, heresies, or blasphemies, 
4 or blasphemous heretics, particularly the toleration granted 
4 by the sectarian usurper, Oliver Cromwell, the anti- 
4 Christian toleration granted by the Popish Duke of York, 
4 and the present continued toleration granted by that wicked 
4 Jezebel, the pretended Queen Anne.' 2 

And this negation is carried out even into the details of 
Eitual. Scotland, as well as England, has its Eitualism, 
its symbolism. But its symbolism is one which depends 
for its meaning not on what it affirms but on what it rejects. 
The Church of Scotland sate in praise, because others stood. 
It stood in prayer because others knelt. It was silent in 
funerals because others spoke. It repudiated Christmas 

1 Burton, ix. 60. 2 Ibid. 



lect. n. ITS INDEPENDENCE. 67 

because others observed it. I do not say that this symbolism 
is not as reasonable or as edifying as much that we cherish 
beyond the Border ; but it is a symbolism peculiar to Scot- 
land, and originating in that antagonism of which I have 
spoken. 

Negation, as I have said, has its value, and has its draw- 
backs. The Church of Scotland, in the aspect which we 
are now considering, is a splendid specimen both of the 
good and evil of this form of theology. There is a sentence 
of Voltaire which well illustrates its use — 4 That which resists 
4 supports.' Such has been the beneficent side of the con- 
tradictious character of the Scottish Church. There is a 
sentence of Goethe which describes how the scoffing Fiend 
is always saying 4 No ' and never 4 Yes.' That is the darker 
side even of the most fervent forms of the same tendency. 

The second feature is the vigour which has been given to Spiritual 
the claims of spiritual independence. It is extremely diffi- ^® pend " 
cult to distinguish how far this is a development of the 
passion for national independence, and of the passion of 
antagonism already mentioned ; or how far it has a separate 
ecclesiastical growth. It can hardly be doubted that, in 
the first instance, if not created it was greatly fostered by the 
historical circumstances of the formation of the Scottish 
Church. The original independence of the General Assembly 
was an accident arising from the political confusion of 
Scotland at the time. It soon received the sanction of the 
legislature, which at once placed it in a unique position 
amongst Protestant Churches. What was called its spiritual 
authority was, in fact, temporal power conceded on a very 
large scale to a body which became the Second Parliament 
of Scotland. This claim to independence from the State 
was, in the close of the seventeenth century, increased from 
another quarter. The original Covenanters, so far from being 
opposed to interference of the civil power in ecclesiastical 

r 2 



68 



THE CHUKCH OF SCOTLAND. 



LECT. II. 



affairs, laid it down as one of the fundamental maxims of their 
Solemn League, that the State should be bound to promote 
true religion, and to procure that all 4 evil instruments for 
4 hindering the reformation of religion shall receive condign 
* punishment from the supreme judicatories of the kingdom.' 
The 4 new forcers of Conscience ' under the Long Parliament, 
whom Milton attacked with such unsparing vehemence, were 
the leaders of the Covenant. It was they 

Who dared adjure the civil sword 
To force the consciences which Christ set free ; 
Tanght them by mere A. S. and Rutherford, 
To ride us with a classic hierarchy. 

But when the State had broken loose from the Covenant, the 
Covenanting section of the Church in retaliation broke loose 
from the State ; and the protest in behalf of Christ's 4 kingly 
4 rights,' as the doctrine was called, though in its ideal 
sense intended to assert the true doctrine of the supre- 
macy of duty and religion over every other consideration, 
drifted away into the secondary and very subordinate 
question of the supremacy of the Covenanting Church over 
the Uncovenanted State ; and thence, as the traditions of 
the Covenant faded away, into the yet more remote and sub- 
ordinate position of the supremacy of ecclesiastical courts, 
whether covenanted or uncovenanted, over all civil courts 
whatever. 4 We never,' says Ealph Erskine, 4 declared a 
4 secession from the Church of Scotland, but only a secession 
4 from the judicatories in their course of defection from the 
4 primitive and covenanted constitution.' 1 

Out of these converging circumstances, combined with 
the more democratic spirit of the Scottish people, much 
more than from any fixed or abstract principle, sprung those 
claims of spiritual independence which have been raised 
within the Church of Scotland, in a stronger form than in 
1 Phillips's Whitefield, p. 231. 



LECT. II. 



ITS INDEPENDENCE. 



69 



any Christian community, except that of Eome; and which, 
though they reached their highest form in the Cameronians 
and in the Free Church, exist in a modified shape both 
in the Established Church and in the Episcopal 1 commu- 
nion. Out of these tendencies grew that extreme sensi- 
tiveness of the Scottish clergy to regal or legislative inter- 
ference, which Hallam well calls 6 Presbyterian Hildebrand- 
ism,' 2 which has caused the name ' Erastian ' to be placed in 
the blackest list of heresies. 

The doctrine is no doubt a representation, greatly dis- 
torted, of a noble truth — the indefeasible superiority of 
moral over material force — of conscience over power — of 
right against might, and the vehemence with which it was 
supported in Scotland gave a strong impulse to the cause of 
Civil Liberty. But this heavenly treasure has been often 
enshrined in very earthly vessels ; and in its earthly as 
well as its nobler aspects it has curiously brought into close 
proximity the two churches which naturally are most op- 
posed to each other. Hildebrand and Andrew Melville would 
doubtless have started with horror at either being thought 
the twin-brother of the other. But so it was — and even in 
actual history the affinity has been recognised. Walter Scott 
has finely touched a living chord when he described how 
Balfour of Burley at last made common cause with the 
Episcopalian Claverhouse against the English invaders ; and, 
in our own time, the admiration excited amongst English 
High Churchmen by the Disruption of 1843 led by rapid 
steps to their own large secession to the Koman Church in 
1845 ; and the most estimable of Scottish Free Churchmen 
has found a welcome ally in the most prelatical of Anglican 
colonial bishops. 

There are two well-known scenes which bring out clearly 
the form in which these feelings of antagonism and inde- 
pendence displayed themselves. 

1 See Lecture I. 2 Constitutional History of England, iii. 421. 



70 



THE CHUECH OF SCOTLAJsT). 



LECT. n. 



Rejection 
of the 
English 
Liturgy. 



The rejection of the English Liturgy took place on 
July 23, 1637. There is an exact forecast of these 
troubles so descriptive of Scottish religion, and so much 
to the credit of the. good sense and good faith, perhaps, 
one may add, the Scottish prudence of James VI., that even 
if open to question as to some of its details it is worth 
citing both as a prelude and a comment. 4 1 keep him 
4 back,' said the King, (speaking of Laud, not yet Arch- 
bishop), 'because he hath a restless spirit. When, three 
6 years since, I had obtained from the Assembly of Perth 
4 the consent to the Five Articles of order and decency in 
* correspondence with the Church of England, I gave the 
4 promise that I would try their obedience no further 
4 anent ecclesiastical affairs, yet this man hath pressed me 
4 to incite them to a nearer conjunction with the Liturgy 
4 and Canons of England ; but I sent him back again with 

4 the previous draft he had drawn For all this he 

4 feared not mine anger, but assaulted me again with an- 
4 other ill-fangled platform to make that stubborn kirk 
4 stoop more to the English pattern. But I durst not play 
4 fast and loose with my soul. He knows not the stomach 
f of that people. But 7 ken the story of my grandmother, 
4 the Queen Margaret, that after she was inveigled to break 
4 her promise made to some mutineers at a Perth meeting, 
4 she never saw good-day, but from thence, being much be- 
4 loved before, was despised of all the people.' 1 

What the result was in St. Giles's Church on that fatal 
day, when the 4 black, popish and superstitious book,' as 
it was called, was opened by the unfortunate Dean of Edin- 
burgh, can hardly be imagined in these more peaceful days. 
4 Wolf,' 4 crafty fox,' 4 son of a witch,' 4 false Judas,' were 
the epithets with which the Prelates who assisted were 
4 mightily upbraided ;' and, had they been actually all these 

1 Hacket's Williams, p. 14. 



LECT. II. 



ITS INDEPENDENCE. 



71 



things, they could hardly have been worse treated. And yet, 
4 these speeches ' of a certain woman, says a grave eye- 
witness, 4 proceeded not' (and probably he was quite right), 
' from any particular savage or inveterate malice that could 
4 be conceived against the Bishop's person, but only from a 
4 zeal to (rod's glory, wherewith the woman's heart was 
6 burnt up ; for, had she not discerned the signs of the 
4 beast in the bishop's bowels of conformity, she had 1 
4 never set against him with such a sharp-tongued assault.' 

The two special incidents, which figure in all versions of 
the tumult, under different forms, deserve a more particular 
notice. 

The first was when 4 the old herb-woman ' 4 hearing the 
4 Archbishop, who watched the rubric, direct the Dean to 
4 read the collect of the day,' gathered up her indignation in 
the well-known exclamation, confounding 4 cholic ' and 4 col- 
4 lect,' and discharged at the Dean's head the famous stool, 
which he escaped by 4 jowking,' but gave the signal for a 
universal discharge of the like fauld stools of the ladies or 
their waiting-maids throughout the Church. Had they 
waited till the Dean had read the collect 2 — it is possible that 
they might even then have changed their minds. It is 
curious at this distance of time to read as innocent and 
beautiful an expression of prayer as could be found in any 
part of the services of either Church : — 

4 Lord of all power and might, who art the Author of all 
4 good things, graft in our hearts the love of Thy name, 
4 increase in us true religion, nourish us with all goodness, 
4 and of Thy great mercy keep us in the same through Jesus 
4 Christ our Lord.' 

The other incident was apparently later in the day, when 
4 a good Christian woman ' who, unable to escape from the 
church after its door£ was closed to quell the disturbance, 

1 Appendix to Lord Rothes, p. 20C. 2 Seventh Sunday after Trinity. 



72 



THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. 



LECT. II. 



had retired to the furthest corner to be beyond reach of the 
hateful service, and who then, hearing, as she thought, the 
6 mass sang in her lug,' turned round on the offender, and 
6 shot against him the thunderbolt of her zeal, and warmed 
4 both his cheeks with the weight of her hands.' The dreadful 
provocation which called for this explosion was that, ' a young 
6 man sitting behind her began to sound forth " Amen." ' 1 

Never, except in the days of the French Eevolution, did 
a popular tumult lead to such important results. The stool 
which was on that occasion flung at the head of the Dean of 
Edinburgh extinguished the English Liturgy entirely in 
Scotland for the seventeenth century, to a great extent even 
till the nineteenth ; and gave to the civil war of England 
an impulse which only ended in the overthrow of the Church 
and Monarchy. 2 

No doubt the exasperation had its root in the indomitable 
native vigour of which we have been speaking. But the in- 
trinsic slightness of the incidents which roused it is the best 
proof of the force of the feeling. It is instructive as an 
instance of the folly of pressing outward forms, however 
innocent, on those who cannot understand them. It is 
an instructive reflection to both parties, that the main 
offences which provoked this terrible manifestation might 
now be repeated with impunity in every Church in Scot- 
land, Established, Free, or Seceding. It is an equally in- 
structive reflection, that the two ecclesiastical communions 



1 Appendix to Lord Eothes, p. 155. 

2 The whole transaction is ably 
described in Burton (vi. 442), who 
certainly shakes the identity of the 
' old herb-woman ' with the Jenny 
Geddes who burnt her stool at the 
festivities of the Kestoration. 

The incidents, when read in the 
three original accounts of the Large 
Declaration, Gordon's Scots' Affairs, 
and the Appendix to Lord Eothes' 



Memoirs, are sufficiently distinct. It 
would seem that what particularly 
roused the first of the two assailants, 
was the inopportune correction of the 
Dean by the Archbishop, which called 
attention to the complication of the 
English service, when the Dean had 
to turn over the leaves to look for the 
collect of the day ; and that the second 
was excited by the sound of a response 
unusual in Presbyterian worship. 



LECT. II. 



ITS INDEPENDENCE 



73 



that are now most closely allied against the existing consti- 
tution both of the Church of England and of the Church of 
Scotland, come from the spiritual descendants of Archbishop 
Laud in England, and the spiritual descendants of Jenny 
Greddes in Scotland. 

The other scene to which I will call attention is the adop- The 
tion of the National Covenant. Of all National Confes- covenant 
sions of Faith ever adopted, at least in these realms, it is 
the one which for the time awakened the widest and the 
deepest enthusiasm. It was in the Grey Friars Church at 
Edinburgh that it was first received, on Feb. 28, 1638. The 
aged Earl of Sutherland was the first to sign his name. Then 
the whole congregation followed. Then it was laid on the 
flat gravestone still preserved in the churchyard. Men and 
women crowded to add their names. Some wept aloud, 
others wrote their names in their own blood ; others added 
after their names 'till death.' For hours they signed, till 
every corner of the parchment was filled, and only room left 
for their initials, and the shades of night alone checked the 
continual flow. From Grrey Friars churchyard it spread to 
the whole of Scotland. Gentlemen and noblemen carried 
copies of it 4 in their portmanteaus and pockets,' requiring 
and collecting subscriptions publicly and privately. 1 Women 
sate in church all day and all night, from Friday till Sunday, 
in order to receive the Communion with it. None dared 
to refuse their names. The general panic, or the general 
contagion, caught those whom we should least expect. The 
chivalrous Montrose, the gay Charles II., the holy and en- 
lightened Leighton, were constrained to follow in the uni- 
versal rush. From Scotland it spread to England ; and there 
assumed the more portentous shape of the Solemn League 
and Covenant. What had begun by being an impassioned, 
yet not unreasonable, determination to defend the rights 

1 Rothes, p. 46. 



74 



THE CHUECH OF SCOTLAND. 



LECT. II. 



Solemn °^ P res bytery m Scotland, had now grown into a deter- 

League mination as impassioned to enforce it throughout the 
and Cove- 
nant. Empire. The imperious dictation of the Church of Scotland 

reached into the heart of London. There, in St. Margaret's 
Church, beneath the shadow of Westminster Abbey, the 
Covenant was read from the pulpit, article by article, in the 
presence of both Houses of Parliament and of the Assembly 
of Divines. Every person in the congregation stood up, with 
his right hand raised to heaven, and took the pledge to 
observe it. One by one they signed their names ; and thence 
it was spread and enforced with all the penalties of the law, 
and by all the pressure of enthusiasm in every county in 
England. Hardly any ventured to decline. Forced expla- 
nations, mutual reservations, here and there were expressed. 
The voice of one just and wise man, Eichard Baxter, was 
raised against this indiscriminate enforcement of so minute 
and terrible a confession. But, on the whole, it took its 
place as the very first and chiefest creed of the Church of 
Grreat Britain. The vehemence with which it was first re- 
ceived, the tenacity with which it still retains its hold on the 
Cameronian 1 portion of the Church of Scotland is one of the 
most signal proofs of the power of Scottish religion to en- 
kindle the whole nation. 6 1 dinna ken what the Covenant 
4 is,' said an old Scottish dame, even in our own day ; 6 but 
6 I'll maintain it.' 6 To pass in silence over the sworn Cove- 
4 nant,' was, according to Eutherford, 2 a denial of Christianity 
itself. But, on the other hand, the rapid subsidence of this 
enthusiasm, even at the time ; its almost total disappearance 
now even amongst those who might be thought of the 
direct spiritual lineage of those who imposed it, is a striking 
example both to Scotland and all the world of the transitory 

1 I have elsewhere given an in- sian Creed,' p. 67.) 
stance of this from the practice of the 2 Letters, p. 349. Bonar, p. 201. 
Cameronians in Ulster. ( £ Athana- 



LECT. II. 



ITS DIVISIONS. 



nature of those outward expressions of party zeal, which at 
the moment seem all important. There are documents of a 
like sulphurous kind which still hold a certain place, though 
they were not engendered in so impassioned an atmosphere 
as the Solemn League and Covenant. But their original 
source is identical, and their ultimate fate will doubtless be 
the same. 

This leads me to the third point in Scottish theology Minute 
which is worth noticing, namely, the littleness and the ^visToii 
minuteness of the points on which its religious divisions 
have taken place. Perhaps in themselves they are not 
smaller or more obscure than some of those which divided 
the Church in the fourth and fifth centuries. But they 
have this peculiarity in Scotland, that they have hardly 
ever reached beyond the Scottish borders, or even the 
borders of the contending Churches. The Solemn League 
and Covenant, as we have seen, for a few years had a vast 
extension through the whole realm. But the subsequent 
secessions, which have almost all had some relation to it, 
and which are in fact its direct offspring, are entirely con- 
fined to Scotland and Scottish colonies. 

It is said that on the day of the Disruption of 1843, 
when tlri news flew through Edinburgh that four hundred 
ministers had left the Established Church, a well-known 
judge exclaimed with a just feeling of national pride, 
4 Have they gone out ? There is not another country 
' in the world in which such a spectacle could be seen.' 
He was right. There was no other country in the world 
where so noble a testimony could have been borne to 
the sacredness and tenderness of scrupulous consciences. 
But it is no less true that, in no other country in the world 
would the consciences of so many able and excellent 
men have been so deeply wounded by the intricacies of a 
legal suit, of which the point at issue can only be ascer- 
tained by a searching investigation of conflicting statements, 



76 THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. lect. ii; 



even amongst those who are most keen in the controversy. 
In the great Craigdallie case, which formed the analogous 
bone of contention between 'the Old Lights and the New 
4 Lights,' Lord Eldon expressed this difficulty with character- 
istic solemnity : — 4 The Court,' 1 he said 4 has pronounced an 
4 interlocutor, in which it describes the utter impossibility of 
4 seeing anything like what was intelligible in the proceedings, 
4 and I do not know how the House of Lords is to relieve the 
4 parties from the consequence. The Court of Session in Scot- 
6 land are quite as likely to know what were the principles and 
4 standards of the Associate Presbytery and Synod of Scot- 
4 land as any of your lordships ; and are as well, if not 
4 better able, than your lordships, to decide whether any 
4 acts done or opinions professed by the defenders, Jedi- 
4 diah Aiken and others, were opinions and facts which were 
4 a deviation on the part of the defenders from the prin- 
4 ciples and standards of the Associate Presbytery and Synod. 
4 If they were obliged to justify their finding as they do, 
4 intimating that they doubt whether they understood the 
4 subject at all, under the words, 44 as far as they are capable 
4 44 of understanding the subject," I hope I maybe permitted 
4 without offence to you to say, that there may be some 
4 doubt whether we understand the subject, not only because 
4 the Court of Session is much more likely to understand the 
4 matter than we are, but because I have had the mortifica- 
4 tion, many times over, to endeavour myself to understand 
4 what these principles were, and whether they have or have 
4 not deviated from them ; and I have made the attempt to 
4 understand it, till I find it, at least on my part, to be quite 
4 hopeless.' 

The perplexity of Lord Eldon has often been felt by 
humbler inquirers. This extreme obscurity and particularity 
of theological statement of which he complains, has doubtless 

1 Innes's Law of Creeds in Scotland, p. 341, 342. 



LECT. II. 



ITS DIVISIONS. 



77 



been the result of many causes. It belongs to the stubborn 
pugnacity of which I have just spoken. It belongs also to the 
extraordinary eagerness inherent in all movements of a party 
character — but, from the union of logical subtlety and fervid 
impetuosity, particularly conspicuous in Scottish agitations, 
to invest small details with the grandeur of universal princi- 
ples. There is a saying of Samuel Rutherford in his preface 
to the e Rights of Presbyterianism,' which ought to be the ex- 
ception in all sound theology, but which, in many of these 
Scottish disputes, has been taken as the rule. 4 In Grod's mat- 
6 ters there is not, as in grammar, the positive and compara- 
6 tive degrees ; there are not a true, and more true, and most 
* true. Truth is in an indivisible line that hath no latitude.' 

This tendency may also have been in fact increased by 
the peculiarity of the Westminster Confession. Latest 
born, with one exception, of all Protestant Confessions, it 
far more nearly approaches the full proportions of a theo- 
logical practice, and exhibits far more depth of theological 
insight than any other. But, on the other hand, it reflects 
also far more than any other the minute hair-splitting and 
straw-dividing distinctions which had reached their height 
in the Puritanical theology of that age, and which in sermons 
ran into the sixteenthly, seventeenthly sections, that so exer- 
cised the soul of Dugald Dalgetty as he waited for the con- 
clusion of the discourse in the chapel of Inverary Castle. 
It accordingly furnished the food for which the some- 
what hard and logical intellect of Scotland had a special 
appetite. The more genial influence of a general literature 
which had already sprung up in England, and which, as 
Matthew Arnold would say, had already played freely round 
its theological literature, and diffused something at least of 
4 sweetness and light ' into its darkest corners, had hardly 
yet made itself felt in Scotland. Questions of purely secular 
interest, patronage, decisions of courts of law, various de-. 



78 



THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND 



LEOT. TI. 



tails of civil administration, were thus invested with the 
dignity of fundamental principles, and pursued through all 
the ramifications of Covenanting theology. 
Whitefield It would be ungracious, and it would be needless to 
Seceders. multiply instances. Let one suffice. When George White- 
field came to Scotland, bursting with enthusiasm, burning 
with Calvinistic fervour, he expected nothing but sympathy 
from the disciples of John Knox, and especially from that 
extremest and straitest sect which, under the guidance of 
Ealph and Ebenezer Erskine, had, for the sake of purer air 
and more fiery zeal, deviated from the Church of Scotland 
as he had from the Church of England. 4 Come,' said Ealph 
Erskine, with a simplicity which is almost tragical, 4 Come, 
4 if possible, dear Whitefield ; there is no face on earth 
6 which I would more earnestly desire to see. Yet,' he adds, 
4 I do desire it only in a way that I think would tend most 
4 to the advancing of the Lord's kingdom, and Eeforma- 
4 tion-work in our hands.' The humble mansion may still 
be visited at Dunfermline, in which Whitefield was received 
by the zealous brothers. A small low chamber, opening into 
a still smaller oratory, such as used, till lately, to be seen 
in many of the old houses in Edinburgh, was the scene of 
this singular conference. They required that he should only 
preach for them : they were the Lord's people. But White- 
field would hear of none of their limitations. He would 
refuse no call, he said, 4 to preach Christ, whoever gave it ; 
4 were it a Jesuit or a Mahometan, I would use it for testify- 
4 ing against them. If others are the Devil's people, they 
4 have more need to be preached to. If the Pope should 
4 lend me his pulpit, I would declare the righteousness of 
4 Christ therein.' They then determined to instruct him in 
the order of Church Government. He was required, before 
he proceeded a step further, to sign the Solemn League 
and Covenant. To their amazement he knew nothing about 



LECT. II. 



ITS DIVISIONS. 



79 



it, 4 as he had been busy with matters of greater importance.' 

Every pin of the tabernacle,' they said, 6 was precious.' He 
could not be persuaded, and they parted asunder. 1 

But they still pursued him and his work ; and, after the 
wonderful effects produced by his preaching on the green bank 
at Cambuslang, still called 6 Conversion Brae,' the Seceders, 
with the Cameronians at their back, appointed the 4th of 
August as a day of fasting and humiliation throughout their 
whole body, for the countenance given to Whitefield, 2 4 a 
4 priest of the Church of England, who had sworn the Oath 
6 of Supremacy and abjured the Solemn League and Cove- 
' nant, and for the system of delusion attending the present 
4 awful work on the bodies and spirits of men going on at 
6 Cambuslang.' They published the 6 Declaration, Protesta- 
4 tion, and Testimony of the suffering remnant of the anti- 
4 Popish, anti-Lutheran, anti-Erastian, anti-Prelatic, anti- 
4 Whitefieldian, anti-Sectarian, true Presbyterian Church of 
4 Christ in Scotland against Greorge Whitefield and his 
4 encouragers, and against the work at Cambuslang and other 
4 places.' In this protest the zealots and polemics of every 
Church may see their own faces reflected. Its spirit can 
hardly be said to have passed away from the Church of 
Scotland altogether. It would be most unjust and un- 
charitable to dwell on its manifestations as if they were 
general or predominant; and I shall, as I proceed, gladly 
acknowledge the immense advance made wifhin the last 
thirty years, even in those quarters in which it chiefly pre- 
vailed. Yet surely it still is true, that hardly anywhere 
in Christendom could have been heard such animated and 
able debates as have been quite recently witnessed in the 
assembly of the greatest of the Seceding Churches in Scot- 
land ; one on 4 the Double and Single Reference,' the other 
on 4 the Unlawfulness of Human Hyixns.' 

1 Gledstone's Life of Whitefield - Burton lx. 201, 301. 



80 



THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. „ lect. n. 



II. It remains to sum up the good and evil of this aspect 
of Scottish theology, which has so deeply coloured the Church 
of Scotland, which has been the one prevailing hue of those 
portions of it that make up the bulk of its outlying 
sections. 

1. On the one hand, it is undeniable that this has been the 
source at which some of the finest and noblest spirits of the 
Scottish Church, especially in its less educated classes, have 
been fed. The elaborate arguments of the Westminster 
Confession, and the long wail of the Judicial Testimony — 
the stubborn resistance to Popery and Prelacy — have formed 
the rough husk within which lies hid the Divine fire of 
Scotland's Burning Bush. If intolerant excesses of this ten- 
dency have given occasion to the withering sarcasms of 
Burns ' 6 Holy Fair ' and 4 Holy Willie,' its nobler side has 
furnished that unrivalled picture of a poor man's religious 
household — 4 The Cotter's Saturday Night : ' — 

The eheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face, 

They, round the ingle, form a circle wide ; 
The sire turns o'er, with patriarchal grace, 

The big ha' Bible, ance his father's pride : 
His bonnet rev'rently is laid aside, 

His lyart haffets wearing thin an' bare ; 
Those strains that once did sweet in. Zion glide, 

He wales a portion with judicious care, 
And ' Let us worship God ! ' he says, with solemn air. 

Most true* it is that 4 from scenes ' and from studies like 
these 4 old Scotia's grandeur springs.' The Solemn League 
and Covenant, strange as it seems to us, inspired a rap- 
ture seemingly as pure and heavenly as if it had been 
the 4 Imitatio Christi.' Listen to the 4 Swan Song ' — the 
very name is full of emotion — 4 or the dying testimony of 
4 that old, flourishing, and great Christian princely wrestler 
4 with his Master and valiant contender for Christ's truths 
4 and rights and royal prerogatives, James Masson.' 4 When 



LECT. II. 



ITS DEVOTION. 



81 



4 I first beard the Covenant mentioned, I thought my heart 
6 fluttered within me for joy. Then, therefore, at such 
4 times and in such places I took it, as at Dumfries, 
6 Pierpoint, Kirkmalo, and Iron Grray, which I never forget 
4 to this day, and hope never to do. Oh what shall I speak 
6 to the commendation of those covenants ? If they were 
6 then glorious and bright, I believe that they will be nine 
4 times as bright. And oh the sweet times of Covenanting 
6 1 had likewise at communion in those days, when the 
4 Church was in her purity, and the Lord shined on W. ? 
4 and in other places, at the preaching of his word, which I 
4 cannot now tell over, being past my memory. But the 
4 back-looking to them now and then does not a little refresh 
4 my soul, as at Loche Hilt and Shallochburn, where, besides 
4 the sweet manifestations to my soul, and the soul of others 
4 then present, Pie was to be as a wall of fire round about 
4 us, defending us from our enemies.' 1 

The splendid appeal of Ephraim Macbriar to his judges in 
4 Old Mortality,' which is almost literally copied from that 
of Hugh M 4 Cail, is as genuine an outcome of the wild 
theology of those days as the ravings of Habakkuk Muckle- 
wrath. The tombs of the Covenanters are to the Scottish 
Church what the Catacombs are to the early Christian 
Church. If the inscriptions which hope that their perse- 
cutors will 

4 Find at Resurrection-day, 
To murder saints was no sweet play 

recall to us the savage imprecations of Tertullian, and the 
author of the treatise 4 De Mortibus Persecutorum,' the simple 
ever-recurring rhymes which enumerate the names of those 
who died for the 4 covenanted work of Reformation,' are more 
like the monuments of the Christians of those first ages than 



1 Burton, riii. 253. 



82 



THE CHUECH OF SCOTLAND. 



XECT. II. 



anything else which exists in modern times. In no other Pro- 
testant Chnrch has such genuine veneration gathered round 
the graves of martyrs and scenes of martyrdom as at Auch- 
inleck, where the whole parish migrated to the foot of the 
gallows on which Alexander Peden was hanged ; or at Wig- 
ton, where the two women were drowned on the seashore for 
refusing the Test ; or in the green spot called 4 the Martyrs' 
Field,' on Magus Moor, through which no plough has ever 
been driven since the Covenanters were buried there who 
slew Archbishop Sharp. The outward circumstances which 
nourished this singular devotion have almost totally passed, 
away. The devotion itself remains, a proof of the intensity 
of belief that can be sustained by the narrowest form of 
doctrine, if it be planted in a manly, independent under- 
standing, and a warm, self-sacrificing heart. 

6 The soldiers of the Cameronian regiment,' said Kerr of 
Kershaw, who, as Mr. Burton says, 4 being among them, but 
4 not of them,' rendered to them this noble testimony, 4 are 
4 strictly religious, and make the war a part of their religion, 
4 and convert state policy into points of conscience. They fight 
4 as they pray, and pray as they fight. They may be slain ; 
' never conquered. Many have lost their lives ; few or none 
4 ever yielded. Whenever their duty or their religion calls 
4 them to it, they are always unanimous and ready with un- 
4 daunted spirit and great vivacity of mind to encounter 
4 hardships, attempt great enterprises, despise dangers, and 
4 bravely rush to death or victory.' 1 

2. But, on the other hand, this marvellous energy of Scot- 
tish Presbyterian religion ought not to blind us to the fact 
of the curious defects by which the forms of it here con- 
sidered have been so long disfigured. I do not now speak of 
the extravagances of Calvinism, which it shared with the Ee- 
formed Churches of Geneva, of Holland, and of Connecticut. 

1 Burton } vii. 460. 



LECT. II. 



ITS THEOLOGY. 



83 



But there are some features which it possesses almost peculiar 
to itself. The immense preponderance of the teaching of the 
Old Testament, and of some of the most transitory parts of 
the Old Testament over the New, and over the most essential 
part of the New, cannot but have cribbed, confined, and 
soured the religious teaching of the country. Even in Judaic 
Burns's beautiful picture of the Cotter's Saturday Night, of^s^ 61 
the scenes from Jewish history and from the most Judaic theology, 
book in the 6 Christian volume ' counterbalance all the rest. 
Much more was this the case in the earlier days, whence 
this form of teaching took its rise. The Scottish religious 
civil wars were, in the Acts of the General Assemblies^ re- 
garded as equivalent to the wars of the Lord in the Jewish 
times. 1 In a well-known pamphlet of the seventeenth cen- 
tury — 6 Issachar's Ass braying under a Double Burden ' — a 
careful observer has found that, out of a hundred or more 
references to the Bible, eighty-four are to the Old Testament 
and only fifteen to the New. 2 Of one of the most eminent 
lay politicians of the Covenanting Church, Lord Macaulay 
remarks 3 that, ' He had a text of the Old Testament ready 
6 for every occasion. ... It is a striking characteristic of 
4 the man and of the school in which he had been trained, 
6 that in all the mass of his writing which has come down to 
6 us, there is not a word indicating that he had ever heard 
4 of the New Testament.' The intense reverence for the 
Sabbath, beyond what is taught, not only in the Eoman 
Catholic or Anglican Churches, but in any Lutheran or 
Calvinistic Continental Church, is an example of the same 
tendency ; a reverence, no doubt, which has fostered many 
of the finest qualities in the Scottish people, and which must 
be honoured accordingly, but which assumed a disproportion, 
and became, so to speak, a malformation of the religious 
system analogous to that which is created in Eussia by the 

1 Cunningham, ii. 137. 3 Ibid. 256. 3 Macaulay, iii. 28. 

g 2 



84 



THE CHUECH OF SCOTLAND. 



LECT. II. 



excessive veneration for sacred pictures, and in France and 
Italy by the excessive veneration for particular saints. 

Passing over some of the more obvious consequences of 
these peculiarities, there is one which deserves special notice, 
as probably the most direct result from the narrow, technical, 
and antagonistic basis on which Scottish religion has been 
constructed, and the numerous checks by which its free de- 
velopment is guarded. In one of Dr. Johnson's most inso- 
lent moods, when in the Isle of Skye, he attacked the igno- 
rance of the Scottish clergy : — ' The clergy of England have 
' produced the most valuable works in support of religion, both 
6 in theory and practice ; what have your clergy done since 
£ they fell into Presbyterianism ? Can you name one book of 
6 any value on a religious subject written by them ?' 1 His 
opponents were silent. The charge of general ignorance 
might, as we shall see hereafter, have been easily rebutted ; 
and, as regards theology, if we pass from Dr. Johnson's time to 
our own, there are several living theologians of the Church of 
Absence Scotland at whose feet Englishmen might be proud to sit. 

of a , But the charge that no theological work had proceeded from 
general ° ° 1 

theology. Scotland which had more than a local reputation, is absolutely 
true with regard to the more strictly Presbyterian theology 
of which we are now speaking ; and true, with a very few 
exceptions, which shall be noticed in their proper places, of 
Scottish theology altogether. A dearth so extraordinary in 
a nation whose struggles have been so profoundly religious, is 
a singular phenomenon. It may be in part explained, as 
Boswell tried to explain it, by the assiduity of the Scottish 
clergy in their parochial ministrations ; in part by the poverty 
of the ecclesiastical endowments. But it must be chiefly 
explained by the technical and minute subjects on which 
Scottish theology has run. There are, doubtless, many 
treatises of Scottish theology — well known in Scotland — but 

1 Boswell, ii. 476. 



LECT. U. 



ITS THEOLOGY. 



85 



the language, the matter, the thoughts are so restricted as to 
prevent them from ever reaching a wider circle of readers. 
6 At the date,' says Carlyle, 4 when Addison and Steele were 
6 writing their " Spectators " ' — (he might have added, when 
Jeremy Taylor and Barrow, when Locke and Cudworth were 
writing their treatises on theology and on Scripture, in works 
which are still reckoned amongst the glories of English 
literature) — 6 our good Thomas Boston was writing with the 
6 noblest intent, but in defiance of grammar and philosophy, 
c his " Fourfold State of Man." There were the schisms in 
6 our national Church, and the fiercer schisms in our body 
' politic and theologic, ink, Jacobite blood, with gall enough 
c in both to have blotted out the intellect of the country.' 1 
This general fact is a striking proof how strong a tendency 
there is in such angular religion, in these stringent obliga- 
tions to a past system of theology, to dry up, as far as reli- 
gion is concerned, the intellectual forces even of a highly 
intellectual people. It was under these straitening influ- 
ences that the miserable superstitions of witchcraft lingered 
in Scotland after they had expired everywhere else ; and 
that the strange delusions of what are called the £ Men ' 
long maintained a hold over the peasants and ministers of 
the Highlands. 

And yet more. It is instructive to notice the instances, Moral 
perhaps more striking from the sharpness of the contrast, in inconsi s- 
which the strong religious zeal of Scottish partisans has at 
times contrived to be united with worldly character or vicious 
life, such as we find in the history of some of the correspond- 
ing phenomena of the ecclesiastical history of France or of 
Eussia. If anyone imagines that Balfour of Burley in 6 Old 
6 Mortality [ is an overdrawn caricature of this tendency, let 
them consider the undoubted historic instances of Lord Craw- 
ford and Lord Grange. Lord Crawford was appointed presi-. 

1 Carlyle, Essays, iii. 361. 



86 



THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. 



LECT. II. 



dent of the Parliament by William IIL's Grovernment in the 
hope of conciliating the rigid Presbyterians. His exuberant 
use of the Old Testament has been already noticed. 4 Alone,' 
says Lord Macaulay, 4 or almost alone of the eminent politi- 
cians, 4 he retained the religious style which had been fashion- 
4 able in the preceding generation,' and was by his own school 
confidently pronounced to be a saint. 1 4 Yet,' continues 
Lord Macaulay, 4 to those who judge of a man rather by 
4 his actions than his words, Crawford will appear to have 
4 been a selfish politician, who was not at all the dupe of 
'his own cant, and whose zeal against Episcopal govern- 
* ment was not a little whetted by his desire to obtain 
4 a grant of Episcopal domains.' 2 Lord Grange was one 
of those grasping, vindictive, violent men that figure con- 
spicuously in the earlier days of Scottish medieval his- 
tory. His wife, his kinsfolk, were the objects of his most 
cruel persecutions. 6 It is almost frightful,' says Mr. Bur- 
ton, 4 to find a man of this kind in firm alliance with 
6 the most rigid Presbyterian divines, conforming to the 
4 worship and discipline of their Church, so as to fulfil the 
6 most ample requisitions of the most exacting, and a 
4 powerful and well-trusted member of the Church courts. 
4 His diary of self-communing continues in a uniform strain 
4 the exalted tone of piety belonging to one who, as Wodrow 
4 says, thought there was too much preaching up of morality 
4 and too little of grace. Yet if there was any act of 
4 rigour, of indecent outrage on private life or opinion, 
4 Grange was the one to whom it was committed, and he 
4 performed the duty with genuine and unconcealed enjoy- 
4 ment.' 3 

III. It may seem invidious thus to have dwelt on the 
darker traits of a great and noble people. If I have done so at 

1 Cunningham, ii. 445. 2 Macaulay, iii. 296. 

3 Burton, viii. 309. 



LECT. II. 



ITS RELIGIOUS EXCELLENCE. 



87 



more length than may have seemed becoming, it is because 
thus only could I draw out the peculiarities which are most 
instructive for them and for us to contemplate. In my Religious 
two next Lectures I shall hope to show that there has been excellence * 
in the Church, and may yet be, a more excellent way even 
than the Solemn League and Covenant, or the Judicial 
Testimony, or the fiery Baptism of the Disruption. But 
even in the aspect in which I have now been regarding the 
religion of Scotland, this excellent way may be discerned. 

I have, in describing this fervid atmosphere, indicated 
how not only the Church of Scotland, in all its length and 
breadth, but the Church of England also may well warm its 
frozen heart, and get the chill out of its bones, by drawing 
near to the Burning Bush of Scotland's ancient Church. 
But that flame itself soars higher yet. It is at once a proof 
of the singular candour and the true religious instinct of 
Walter Scott, that of all the Scottish characters in his 
Scottish romances, none more truly represent the highest 
Christian type than Jeanie Deans, the daughter of an Anti- 
burgher, and Bessie Maclure, the mother of two martyrs for 
the Covenant. 

Let me dwell for a few moments on at least one historical Samuel 
character of this period, which doubtless may stand for ^r^ 16 '" 
many. I have already quoted a line from one of Milton's 
poems, in which he glances with contemptuous scorn at 
what he deemed the obscure name of Eutherford. He did not 
care to inquire what that name represented to the Scottish 
people. Samuel Eutherford is the true saint of the Cove- 
nant. His boyhood is enveloped with legends, such as 
those of which I spoke in my first Lecture. His native 
place was Crailing, of which he himself afterwards said — 
fi My soul's desire is that that place, to which I owe my 
6 first birth, in which I fear that Christ was scarcely named 
6 as touching any reality of the power of godliness, may 



THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. 



LECT. II. 



4 blossom as tlie rose.' It is said that the great grandfather 
of the present Marquis of Lothian always raised his hat as 
he passed the cottage where Rutherford was born. . A tradi- 
His life. tion ran that in his childish sports he had fallen into a well, 
and when his companions got back they found him on a hill, 
cold and dripping, but uninjured. 6 A bonnie white man,' 
he said, 4 came and drew him out of the well.' It is exactly 
the story of St. Cuthbert's childhood, repeated in the seven- 
teenth century. 1 

Anwoth, on the shores of (xalloway, was the scene of his 
pastoral ministrations. I have already sjooken elsewhere 
of the traditions of his manse 2 and church, and described 
the scene of his interview with Archbishop Ussher. Men 
said of his life there, — 4 He is always praying, always 
4 preaching, always entreating, always visiting the sick, 
4 always catechising, always writing and studying.' c There,' 
he says, 4 1 wrestled with the angel, and prevailed. Woods, 
4 trees, meadows, and hills are my witnesses that I drew 
4 on a fair match betwixt Christ and Anwoth.' 3 

We need not follow his life in detail. He was taken from 
Anwoth, and imprisoned at Aberdeen for his opposition 
to the policy of Charles I. He finally left Anwoth, after 
the triumph of the Covenant, to become Professor at St. 
Andrew's, where he remained till his end. 

He was already on his deathbed when he was summoned 
by the Parliament of Charles II. to appear before it on the 
charge of high treason. 4 1 am summoned,' he replied, 
4 before a higher Judge and judicatory : that first summons 
4 I behove to answer ; and, ere a few days arrive, I shall be 
4 where few kings and great folks come.' 

On the last day of his life, in the afternoon, he said — 
4 This night will close the dawn and fasten my anchor 
4 within the veil, and I shall go away in a sleep by five o'clock 
4 in the evening. There is nothing now between me and the 
1 Life, p. vi. 2 'The Eleventh Coipinandment.' 3 Ibid. p. 186. 



LECT. II. 



SAMUEL RUTHERFORD. 



89 



6 resurrection but " This day shalt thou be with me in Para- 
6 44 dise." 44 Grlory, glory dwelleth in Emmanuel's Land." ' 

When Parliament voted that he should not die in the 
College, Lord Burley rose and said — 4 Ye caunot vote him 
6 out of Heaven.' He lies in the churchyard of the ruined 
cathedral of St. Andrew's : and, like a mediseval saint, has 
attracted round him, 4 the godly, who desired that they might 
be laid even where his body was laid.' 1 

I pass from his life to his character. An English merchant His cha- 
at St. Andrew's said : 4 1 heard a sweet, majestic looking racter * 
4 man [one of the other Professors], and he showed me the 
4 majesty of Grod. Afterwards I heard a little fair man 
4 [Samuel Eutherford], and he showed me the loveliness of 
4 Christ.' It is the same spirit as that in which, when 
Lord Kenmare once asked him, 4 What will Christ be like 
4 when He cometh ? ' he replied, 4 All lovely.' 2 

The chief record of this is in his letters from 'Christ's 
4 Palace at Aberdeen,' as he termed his prison. They teem 
with figures of speech, so offensive to the taste of a more 
refined age, that they are now, in great part, unreadable. 
Yet they were still, till the beginning of this century, a 
popular book of devotion in Scotland, England, and Hol- 
land. Eichard Cecil, the most cultivated of modern Eng- 
lish Evangelicals, said of him : 4 He is one of my classics, 
4 and he is a real original.' Eichard Baxter, the most latitu- 
dinarian of the fathers of Nonconformity, said : 4 Hold off 
4 the Bible, such a work the world never saw.' And they 
contain passages which fully bear out this character : 4 With 
4 Samuel Eutherford, 3 the bitter and bigoted controver- 
4 sialist, let us have no fellowship. To Samuel Eutherford, 
4 the writer of those glowing letters, let the full sympathies 
4 of our soul be given,' 

1 Bonar's Life, p. xxvi. Head : ' a Sermon preached Nov. 13, 

2 Life of Rutherford, p. 107. 1859, by the Rev. J, Hanna, LL.D. 

3 ' The Church and its Living 



90 



THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. 



IiECT. II. 



Listen to his consolation to a lady on the death of a pro- 
mising son. £ I was once in your condition. I had bnt two 
6 children, and both are dead since I came hither. The 
4 supreme and absolute Father of all things giveth not an 
c account of any of his matters. The good husbandman 
6 may pluck his roses, and gather in his lilies at Midsum- 
' mer, and, for aught I dare say, in the beginning of the 
6 first summer months ; and he may transplant young trees 

* out of the lower ground to the higher, where they may 
' have the use of a purer air at any season of the year. 
' What is that to you or to me ? The goods are His own : 
4 the Creator of time and wind did a merciful injury (if I 
6 dare borrow the word) to nature, in landing the passenger 
6 so easily.' 1 

Listen to his description of the voyage of life. 4 How 
6 fast, how fast doth our ship sail ! Ah ! how fair a wind 
6 hath time to blow us off these coasts and this land of dying 

* and perishing things ! Ah, alas! our ship saileth one way, and 
' fleeth many miles in one hour, to hasten us upon eternity, 

< and our love and hearts are sailing close back over, and 

* swimming towards ease, lawless pleasures, vain hopes, 

* perishing riches, or to build a fool's nest I know not where, 

* or to lay our eggs within the watermark, or fasten our 

* bits of broken anchors on the worst ground in the world — 
' this fleeting and perishing life ; and, in the meanwhile, 

* time and tide carry us on another life, and there is daily 

* less and less oil in our lamp, and less and less sand in our 

< watchglass. Oh what a wise course it were for us to look 

* away from the false beauty of our borrowed prison, and 
6 to mind and sigh for our country — "Lord, Lord, take us 
« home!"' 

Listen to his lamentations for Scotland: 2 'Christ lieth like 

* an old forecasten castle forsaken of its inhabitants, all men 



1 Letters, p. 308. Bonar, p. 136. 



2 Letters, p. 378. 



LECT. IT. 



SAMUEL RUTHERFORD. 



91 



' run away now from him. Truth, innocent truth, goeth 
4 mourning, and wringing her hands in sackcloth and ashes. 
4 Woe, woe, woe to the virgin daughter of Scotland ! woe, 
4 woe, woe to the inhabitants of this land ! . . . These 
' things take me up so that a borrowed bed, another man's 
6 fireside, the wind upon my face (I being driven from my 
4 home, and dear acquaintance, and my poor flock), find no 
4 room in my sorrow : I have no spare or odd sorrow for 
4 these ; only I think the sparrows and swallows that build 
4 their nests in the kirk of Anwoth blessed birds.' 1 

Listen to the expression of his better hope for his country : 
4 I dare not speak one word against the all-seeing and 
4 ever-watching Providence of Grod. I see Providence run- 
4 neth not on broken wheels ; but I, like a fool, carried a pro- 
4 vender for mine own ease, to die in my nest, and to sleep 
4 still till my gray hairs, and to lie on the sunny side of 
4 the mountain in my ministry at Anwoth. . . . But 
4 now I see Grod hath the world on His wheels, and casteth 
4 it as a potter doth a vessel on the wheels I ' 2 4 Oh that 
4 He would strike out windows and fair and great lights in 
4 this old house, this downfallen soul, that the rays and 
4 beams of light, and the soul-delighting glances of the 
4 fair, fair Grodhead might shine in at the windows and fill 
4 the house. A fairer, and nearer, and more direct sight of 
4 Christ would make room for His love, for we are pinched 
4 and straitened in His love. Oh that He would break down 
4 the old narrow vessels of those narrow and shallow souls, 
4 and make fair, deep, wide, broad souls, to hold a sea and 
4 full tide, flowing over all its banks of Christ's love ! . . . 
4 Oh what a heaven we should have on earth to see Scot- 
4 land's moon like the light of the sun, and Scotland's sun- 
4 light manifold like the light of seven days, in the day 
4 that the Lord raiseth up the head of His people, and 
4 healeth the stroke of their wounds ! ' 3 

1 Letters, p. 363. " Ibid, p, 378. 3 Ibid. p. 385. 



THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. 



LECT. IT. 



6 We see (rod's working, and we sorrow. The end of His 
< working still hidden, .... and therefore we believe not. 
i Even amongst men we see hewn stones, timber, and a 

* hundred scattered parcels and pieces of .our house, all 
c under tools, hammers, and axes, and saws. Yet the house 
6 — the beauty and care of so many lodgings — we neither 
6 see nor understand for the present. These are not in the 

* mind and head of the builder as yet. We see old earth, 
6 unbroken clods, graves, and stones ; but we see not summer, 
6 lilies, roses, and the beauty of a garden.' 1 

6 Alas ! that we will not pull and draw Him to His old 
6 tents again, to come and feed among the lilies till the day 
4 breaks and the shadows .flee away. Oh that the nobles 
6 would come, in the strength and courage of the Lord, td 
6 bring our lawful King Jesus here again. I am persuaded 
6 He shall return in glory to this land ; but happy sure they 
c who would help to convey Him to this country, and set Him 
6 up again on the mercy-seat between the cherubim. 0 
6 Sun, return again to darkened Britain ! . . . I know 
6 He can also triumph in suffering, and weep, and reign, 
6 and die, and triumph, and remain in prison, and yet 
4 subdue his enemies. But how happy could I live to see 
£ the Coronation-day of Christ, to see His mother who bare 
6 Him put the crown upon his head again, and cry with 
6 shouting, till the earth shall sing — " Lord Jesus, our King, 
6 " live and reign for evermore." ' % 
Conclu- That Coronation-day to Eutherford meant no doubt, in its 
1 outward form, the enforcement of the Solemn League and 

Covenant, and almost every section of the Church of Scot- 
land now existing would have seemed to him a miserable 
apostasy. But in the inner shrine of his devotions a higher 
spirit lingers, which we may humbly trust would find its solace 
even in our latter days. And so, in like manner, I would 

1 Letters, 305. - 2 Letters, 350. 



IECT. II. 



ITS CONSOLATION". 



93 



speak for a moment of those who invest with the like sanctity 
modern watchwords and war-cries equally transitory. I have 
been told that in the 6 Convocation, 7 or solemn assembly? 
that preceded the Disruption of 1843, a venerable minister 
exclaimed : 6 When I heard that the decisions of spiritual 
6 courts had been reversed by a decision of the House of 
6 Lords, I felt as an infant would feel if, whilst clinging to 
fi its mother's breast, it found that its mother had been sud- 
6 denly shot dead.' It was a pathetic appeal, which thrilled 
the whole Assembly. Yet if I might venture, from the ex- 
perience of the past, to offer some consolation, I would sug- 
gest that the Church of Scotland has far too much life to 
be shot dead by any such external act as that to which 
the sacred orator referred. Again and again has that cry 
of the death of the Church of Scotland been raised : first, 
when the Covenant was broken ; then when the Black 
Indulgence was granted ; then when the Act of Union be- 
tween England and Scotland was passed. On that last occa- 
sion was made the famous speech of Lord Belhaven, almost 
identical in words with those of the Free Church minister 
in 1843. All Scotsmen know it by heart: 6 I think I 
' see our ancient, mother Caledonia, like Caesar, sitting in 
' the midst of our senate, ruefully looking round about her 9 
6 covering herself with her royal mantle, awaiting the fatal 
6 blow, and breathing out her last with the exclamation— 
4 " And thou too, my son." ' The apprehension, the agita- 
tion, the very figure of speech of the illustrious statesman 
and the venerable ecclesiastic were the same and sprang 
from the same source. And to both of them the same 
answer may be returned which was returned by Lord 
Marchmont to Lord Belhaven : 6 1 awoke, and behold it was 
6 a dream.' It was a dream to think that the great Scottish 
nation could be extinguished by incorporation with the 
civilisation of England. It is a dream to think that the 



94 



THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. 



LECT. II. 



great Scottish Church was to be extinguished because it 
chose to submit to the decisions of law and the contact 
with the English State. 

What forms of life Scottish religion still retains, and will 
retain if it be true to itself, I propose to consider in the 
next Lectures. 



LECTUBE III. 

♦ 

THE MODERATION OF TIIE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND.. 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE PHILOSOPHICAL INSTITUTE, 
JAN. 11, 1872. 



LECTUEE III. 



THE MODERATION OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. 

It will be remembered that Mr. Buckle, in his 4 History of Buckle s 
c Civilisation,' took Scotland as the example of the most charge 
bigoted, priest-ridden country in Europe, next to Spain; the^ 
and drew a frightful picture of the Scottish clergy at the Scotland? 
close of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth 
century. 

The picture itself is probably overcharged ; but 5 even if 
it were correct, the whole effect of the indictment is set 
aside by the fact — which Mr. Buckle has altogether over- 
looked — that in the period following this dark age, the 
Scottish clergy were the most liberal and enlightened of all 
the Churches of Europe ; nay, that even during the time 
that he imagines the Scottish Church to be lost in hopeless 
barbarism, there was a succession of men, who combined the 
deep religious sentiment, which he admits, and the spirit 
of independence which he admires, with a just and philo- 
sophic moderation, which, had he known, he could not have 
failed to admit and to admire equally. 

The tendency which I am now about to describe is part 
of the prudential, 6 canny ' side of the Caledonian character, 
and is as essential a feature of it as the perfervidum 1 m- 
genium Scotorum, which I ventured to depict in my last 
Lecture. Let us trace it first in some of its earliest mani- 
festations, and then in the Augustan age of its ascend^ 

1 It would seem that the original word in Buchanan (Op. i. 321) is pr<e« 
fervidtm. 



98 MODERATION OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND lect. hi. 



ancy, where it found its home in the heart of the Esta- 
blished Church during what is called the reign of the 
Moderates. 

Modera- If the Church of Scotland had a Luther in Knox, it had 
age of thef an Erasmus in the wide and polished culture of Greorge 
don° rma " Buchanan ; 1 and if his royal pupil had fulfilled the theo- 
logical promise which he gave in his early years, Scotland 
might have had on her throne a monarch as latitudinarian 
as Maximilian II. of Germany, or as William the Silent of 
Orange. 6 He is neither Lutheran nor Calvinist,' writes the 
Scottish correspondent to the French court, £ but in many 
1 points much nearer to us. He thinks that faith is dead 
' without works, that there is no predestination, and so 
' forth. He holds a (false) opinion that Faith in Grod alone 
' can save a man, let him belong to what religion he may.' 2 
In the Regent Murray the fervour of the Eeformation was 
combined with a forbearance strongly contrasted with the 
fierce temper of the age. 6 His house was compared to a holy 
' temple, where no foul word was ever spoken. A chapter 
' was read every day after dinner and supper in his family ; yet 
' no one was more free from sour austerity, and he had quar- 
' relied once with Knox, " so that they spoke not together for 
' " eighteen months," because his nature shrank from ex- 
' tremity of intolerance, because he insisted that his sister 
6 should not be interdicted from mass.' 3 With true Scottish 
humour and sagacity he took up his post at the door, and 
declared with much solemnity that he had placed himself 
there 6 that no Scotsman might pollute his eyes with the 
£ abominable thing.' 4 

John Knox himself had a tinge of moderation, which has 

1 It has been said that George Buchanan in the North British Ee- 

Buchanan, David Hume, and "Walter view, No. xci. March 1867. 

Scott are the three Scottish writers 2 Froude, xi. 665. 

of European influence and celebrity. 3 Ibid. 502. 

See a very interesting article on 4 Cunningham, i. 376. 



lbct. in. IN THE AGE OF THE REFORMATION. 



99 



been but little recognised either by his friends or his ene- 
mies. His Confession of Faith stands alone amongst Protes- 
tant Confessions for the acknowledgment, far in advance of 
its age, of its own fallibility : — c We protest that if any one 
4 will note in this our Confession, any article or sentence 
4 impugning Grod's Holy Word, that it would please him 
4 of his goodness, and for Christian charity's sake, to ad- 
4 monish us of the same in writing ; and we, upon our 
4 honour and fidelity, do promise unto him satisfaction from 
4 the mouth of Grod (that is, from His Holy Scriptures), 
4 or else reformation of that which he shall prove to be 
4 amiss.' 1 The rigid Sabbatarianism of modern times re- 
ceived no sanction either from his practice or his teaching. 
He supped with Eandolph on one Sunday evening, and 
visited Calvin during a game of bowls on another. 2 The 
austere theology of Andrew Melville was tempered by an 
interest in classical and academical literature, the very re- 
verse of a hard 3 and narrow Puritanism. 

As in England, so in Scotland, there were gentle or 
prudent spirits who, in spite of the wide chasm between 
the ancient and the Eeformed Church, still, in a mea- 
sure, belonged to both. Such was Hugh Eose, the Black 
Baron of Kilravoch. 4 He lived in a very divided, factious 
4 time ; there falling out then great revolutions in Church 
4 and State, religion changed from Popery to Protestant 
4 — the Queen, laid aside, being in exile. Yet such was 
4 his ever ingenuous, prudential carriage, that he wanted 
4 not respect from the most eminent of all the parties.' 
What was said of a debate betwixt him and two neighbours 
might be said of his whole life. 4 Hutcheon Eose, of Kilra- 



1 This is admirably brought out by 
Br. Robert Lee in his Address on the 
Position of the Clergy. 

2 Hessey's Bampton Lectures, v. 
269, 270. 



8 See the interesting account of his 
scheme for the university of St. An- 
drew's. M'Crie : Life of Melville, ii, 
358. 



100 MODERATION OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND lect. m. 



c voch, an honest man, ill guided betwixt them both.'" 1 Such, 
perhaps in a less creditable form, was John Winram, sub- 
prior of St. Andrew's, who through the whole of that 
troubled period retained his office, and has the fact recorded 
on his tombstone in St. Leonard's churchyard. Conversis 
Rebus — 'though the world had even turned upside down,' 
he contrived still to live and die sub-prior of St. Andrew's. 
Early Again, the Erastian element in the Scottish Church — its 

Erastian c i ose connection with the State, and with all the influences 
of the State, was exceedingly strong from its very first be- 
ginning. The original Confession of John Knox 2 contains 
nothing on the independence of the Church ; and it, as well 
as the Westminster Confession, afterwards, was made binding 
on the Scottish Church by Act of Parliament. 3 

The General Assembly, as I have already said, was itself 
a kind of Parliament. Its forms were borrowed not from 
the Councils of the Church, but from the Scottish Parlia- 
ments. The ouvertures of the Parliament are the overtures 
of the Assembly. 4 It was a very different body then 
from that to which, by successive purifications of the lay ele- 
ment, it has since been reduced. The King, the Eegent, the 
Privy Councillors, the Barons, had a seat and a vote in it 
when they chose to exercise them. The qualification of 
King as elder was not insisted on. When the great lay- 
men came in any numbers the Ministers were compelled to 
sit outside the bar. The presence of the Eegent and the 
nobility was felt by the Assembly itself to be 4 most com- 
6 fortable and most earnestly wished of all, and his absence 
* most dolorous and lamentable.' 5 

1 Cosmo Innes' Early Scottish His- Scottish Reformation was not so 
tory, p. 440. See also his summary much popular as baronial. The 
of the whole family. great Lords held the cause in their 

2 Innes, Law of Creeds, p. 23. own hands, and by their influence 
Knox's History, pp. 208-216. See mainly it was decided. 

also his Appellation to the Nobi- 4 Burton, i. 567. 
lity and Estates of Scotland, in 1556. 6 See Turner's History of the Seces- 
8 The original movement of the sion, c. v. Cunningham, i. 481. 483. 




LECT. III. 



IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 



101 



In the Westminster Assembly the advance of Scottish 
theology depended considerably on the advance 1 of the 
Scottish army. The English members of Parliament were 
always passing in and out of the Jerusalem Chamber, and 
kept a constant watch over its deliberations. 

The Covenant, as we have seen, invoked in the strongest 
terms the aid of the State, and only turned against the State 
when the State turned against the Covenant. 

This brings us from the fierce struggles of the fifteenth 
to those of the seventeenth century. Even on the face of 
the general movement there are traces of a milder spirit. 

The Westminster Confession, complete as it seemed to be, 
was yet from the first seen to partake of the latitude and 
largeness of a compromise. It contained no special mention 
of divine order, or necessity of the ecclesiastical offices re- 
cognised in the Presbyterian Church. In the regulations 
for the Eucharist 2 there is nothing to guard against a free 
communion. Professor Mitchell, of St. Andrew's, has ably 
pointed out the liberal tendency of many of its statements, 
as might be expected from an assembly which contained 
such men as Selden, Lightfoot, and Calamy. Still more 
clearly is this visible in individual examples. 

It has been sometimes complained that Walter Scott's 
character of Henry Morton in 6 Old Mortality,' with his 
enlarged views and philosophic Christianity, is an ana- 
chronism. But to any student of those times it is evident 
that the great master was in this instance as faithful to his- 
torical truth as when he painted Mause Headrigg or Sergeant 
Bothwell. Not only is the prototype of Morton to be found 

1 Eead Baillie's Letters. 1 He allows freedom as well as the more strin- 
* that the pressure of the Scottish army gent forms of subscription, were the 
' helped forward the acceptance of the work of later ecclesiastical legisla- 
? Scottish theology in Westminster.' tion, and were intensified in the 
Chalmers' Life, iii. 437. seceding Churches. See Grub, iii. 

2 Confession, xxvi. 21. The spe- 125, and Moncrieff's Life of Erskine, 
cial precautions which limited this 139. 



102 MODERATION OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND lect. in 

in the contemporary school of the English Latitudinarians 
who had gathered round Lord Falkland in the vale of 
Grreat Tew, or round Cudworth in the Platonic repose of 
Cambridge ; but in Scotland also his likeness may again 
and again be traced. Just such a man — half Presbyterian 
and half Episcopalian — had been Patrick Forbes, the 
laird of Corse, who in early youth had been the friend of 
Andrew Melville, and who in later life reluctantly accepted 
the bishopric of Aberdeen from James I. 4 If wherein our 
4 doubt seemeth defection, his Highness would so far pity 
4 our weakness and consider our peace as to enforce nothing 
4 but what first in a free and national council were de- 
6 termined, wherein his Highness would neither make any 
£ man afraid with terror, nor pervert the judgment of 
4 any with hope of favour, then men may adventure to 
4 do service. But if things be so violently carried as no 
4 end may appear of bitter contention, nor any place left 
4 to men in office but to stir the coals of detestable debate, 
4 for me I have no courage to be a partner in that work. 
4 I wish my heart's blood might extinguish the ungracious 
4 rising flame in our Church.' 1 That is Henry Morton all 
over. That is the true statesmanlike and Christianlike 
policy which might yet have saved Episcopacy and Pres- 
byterianism alike from their worst excesses. And Patrick 
Forbes was no hireling priest or sceptical philosopher. He 
had become a lay preacher at the urgent entreaty both 
of his Episcopalian and Presbyterian neighbours; and he 
became a bishop in the hope of moderating the passions of 
the Episcopal party. If even he, too, was afterwards led 
away by the frenzy of the time, yet he retained enough 
of his original goodness to call down the eulogy not only 
of those whom he joined, but even of some of those whom 
he had left. Wodrow regarded him as the 4 best of the 

1 See Bishop Forbes's Funerals. Grub, ii. 34. 



LECT. in. IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 



103 



4 Scottish prelates ; ' and the Aberdeen colleges remained a 
monument of his enlightened zeal, when almost every trace 
of the Scottish Episcopate perished. 

But it is in the history of the next generation that this 
element of Scottish religion began to exercise a wider 
influence. 

Look at the deputation of Scottish ministers who went Kobert 
up to London for the rearrangement of the Church at the r>ougla ' 
time of the Eestoration. Some of them were obscure 
enough ; but two were men of sufficient interest to redeem 
the character of any school of thought from insignificance 
or contempt. One was Eobert Douglas. He held the 
highest place in the Scottish Church. He had been twice 
moderator. He had preached the coronation sermon of 
Charles II. at Scone. He was one of the chief promoters of 
the Eestoration. He was a staunch Presbyterian, convinced 
of the divine right of Presbytery, full of zeal for the Cove- 
nant. 1 But he was always against extreme measures. 4 He 
6 was,' says Burnet, who knew him in his old age, 4 a reserved 
6 man — too calm and grave for the furious men, yet much 
4 depended on for his prudence' — too prudent, indeed, Bur- 
net thought him — 4 for he durst not own the free thoughts 
6 lie had of some things for fear of offending the people.' 
His theology was thus described by the partisans who were 
eager to scent out those free thoughts. 'He had a singular 
6 tuay of preaching, without doctrines, which some called 
4 scumming the text.' 2 He regarded Eutherford's fanati- 
cal 4 Protestation ' in behalf of the Covenant as 4 the 
4 highest breach of all the articles of the Covenant that 
4 ever was since the work of Eeformation began.' He was 
4 a great State preacher, one of the greatest of that age in 
4 Scotland — for he feared no man to declare the mind of Grod 
4 to him — yet very accessible, and easy to be conversed with. 

1 Wodrow, ii. 329. 2 Wodrow's Analecta, i. 166 ; iii. 82, 83, 298. 



104 MODERATION OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND lect. nr. 



4 Unless a man were for God, he had no value for him, let 
6 him be never so great and noble.' 1 

He lived on gracious terms with his opponents. Of one 
of the ministers with whom he had variance on some 
ecclesiastical matters, he said, 4 1 love him as my own soul.' 
Against Sharpe, no doubt, he spoke angrily, but probably 
because he believed him insincere. 6 Take it, James,' he 
said, when there was the question of the archbishopric of 
St. Andrew's ; 6 take it, and the curse of G-od be on you for 
6 your treacherous dealing.' 2 4 Brother, no more brother, 
4 James. If my conscience had been as yours,' he said 
to Sharpe, 4 1 could have been Bishop of St. Andrew's 
before you.' 4 But,' he added to some one else, 4 1 will 
4 never be Archbishop of St. Andrew's unless I be Chan- 
4 cellor of Scotland also, as some were before me.' He 
was, in fact, a statesman as much as a divine. He had 
served as chaplain in the army of Gustavus Adolphus ; and 
that great king was reported to have said of him when he 
took leave : 4 There is a man who, for wisdom and prudence, 
4 might be counsellor to any prince in Europe ; he might be 
4 a moderator to a General Council ; and even for mili- 
4 tary skill I could very freely trust my army to his con- 
4 duct.' Yet in his statesmanship he never lost his sacred 
character. He had, whilst in the army of Gustavus, got 
the most part of all the Bible in his memory, having 
then taken no other book to read, so that 4 he was as a 
4 concordance to the exactness of a Jew.' 3 

He was one of those whom we sometimes meet in history, 
evidently far greater than circumstances permitted them to 
show themselves. There was a majesty and authority in his 
face that caused those who looked at him to stand in awe of 

1 Wodrow's Analecta, iii. 82, 83. 3 Burnet, Own Time, i. 34. Wod- 

2 Burton, vii. 405. Scott's His- row's Analecta, iii. 82. 
tory of Scotland, 



lect. in. IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 



105 



him ; 6 an air of greatness,' says Burnet, 4 that made all that 
6 knew him inclined to believe he was of no ordinary 
6 descent.' If anything could enhance the interest of this 
mysterious, lofty-minded man — £ the great Mr. Douglas,' as 
he was called — it would be the extraordinary parentage to 
which these words of Burnet point. True or false, the 
romantic story was cherished in the popular belief that his 
grandfather was Greorge Douglas of Lochleven, and his 
grandmother the illustrious captive of that famous castle. 1 

If of Douglas we unfortunately know but little, we are 
fully informed as to one of his companions. Eobert Leigh- 
ton was the one saint common both to the Presbyterian and 
the Episcopalian Church. His whole education and early 
ministry was Presbyterian. His outward form of doctrine 
was a temperate Calvinism. The work by which he is chiefly 
known, his Commentary on St. Peter's Epistles, was written 
when he was in charge of the parish of Newbattle. It was 
only in later life that, for a few years, he reluctantly entered, 
and then gladly quitted, the office of Bishop and Arch- 
bishop, which he had chiefly used for the sake of reconciling 
Presbyterianism and Episcopacy together. 

He was, indeed, a man whom either church might be glad Eobert 
to claim. But the peculiarity of his position was, that he Lei S llt0 
combined a sanctity equal to that of the strictest Cove- 
nanter or the strictest Episcopalian, with a liberality in his 
innermost thoughts equal to that of the widest Platitudina- 
rian of the school of Jeremy Taylor or of Hoadley. Let 
us look at both these points more minutely. They both 
appear far more strongly in the records of his life and 
conversation than could be inferred from his published 
writings. 

There are few men whose character gives the impres- 



1 Burnet, i. 34. Wodrow's Analecta, i. 166, Burton, v. 103; vii. 405, 406. 



106 MODERATION OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND lect. m. 



sion of a more complete elevation both above the cares and 
the prejudice of the world — of a more entire detachment 
from earth. 

Sometimes this appeared in his playful sayings on the mis- 
fortunes of life. On some great pecuniary loss he made a 
jesting remark. 4 What,' said his relation ; 4 is that all you 
4 make of the matter?' 'Truly,' answered Leighton, 'if the 
4 Duke of Newcastle, after losing nineteen times as much of 
4 yearly income, can dance and sing, while the solid hopes of 
6 Christians will not avail to support us, we had better be 
4 as the world.' Once as a party embarked on the Thames 
in a boat between the Savoy and Lambeth, the boat was 
in imminent danger of sinking, and most of them cry- 
ing out, Leighton never lost his serenity ; and, to some 
who expressed their astonishment, replied, 4 Why, what 
4 harm would it have been if we had all been safe landed 
4 on the other side !' 

More often he expressed this gravely. 4 It is in vain,' 
he would say, 4 for anyone to speak of divine things, with- 
4 out something of divine affections. An ungodly clergy- 
4 man must feel uneasy when preaching godliness, and 
' will hardly preach it persuasively. He has not been able 
4 to prevail on himself to be holy, and no marvel if he 
4 fail of prevailing on others. In truth he is in danger 
4 of becoming hardened against religion by the frequent 
4 inculcation of it, if it fail of melting him.' 

He felt deeply the weariness of the world and of the. Church. 
4 I have met with many cunning plotters, but with few 
4 truly honest and skilful undertakers. Many have I seen 
4 who were wise and great as to this world ; but of such as 
4 are willing to be weak that others may be strong, and 
4 whose only aim it is to promote the prosperity of Zion, I 
* have not found one in ten thousand.' 

To the Lord's Prayer he was specially partial and said : 



lect. in. IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 



107 



4 Oh ! the spirit of this prayer would make rare Christians.' 1 
4 One devout thought is worth all my books.' 2 The 
Psalter he called 4 a bundle of myrrh that ought to lie day 
6 and night in the bosom.' 3 Scarce a line in it that had 
passed without the stroke of his pencil. 4 My uncle did not 
6 give thanks,' observed his little nephew, 4 like other folks.' 4 
His longing to depart grew into a passion. 6 To be content 
4 to stay always in this world,' he said, 4 is above the 
4 obedience of angels. Those holy spirits are employed 
4 according to the perfection of their natures, and restless- 
4 ness in hymns of praise is their only rest. But the ut- 
4 most we poor mortals can attain to is to lie awake in the 
4 dark, and a great piece of art and patience it is spatiosam 
4 fallere noctem? Often would he bewail the proneness of 
Christians to stop short of perfection ; and it was his grief 
to observe, that 4 some good men are content to be low and 
4 stunted vines? 5 

This is a letter to a friend when he was Principal of the 
University of Edinburgh. 4 Oh ! what a weariness is 
4 it to live amongst men and find so few men, and 
4 amongst Christians and find so few Christians ; so much 
4 talk and so little action ; religion turned almost into 
4 a tune and air of words ; and, amidst all our pretty dis- 
4 courses, pusillanimous and base, and so easily dragged 
4 into the mire ; self and flesh, and pride and passion 
4 domineering, while we speak of being in Christ and 
4 clothed with Him, and believe it, because we speak it so 
4 often and so confidently. 6 Well, I know you are not willing 
4 to be thus gulled, and, having some glances of the beauty of 
4 holiness, aim no lower than perfection, which is the end we 
4 hope to attain, and in the meantime the smallest advances 

1 Pearson's Life of Leighton, vol. i. 4 Ibid. p. cxviii. 

p. cxiii. 5 Ibid. p. cxix. 

3 Ibid. p. cxir. 8 Ibid. p. ciii. 
8 Ibid. p. cxvi. 



108 MODERATION" OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND lect. m. 



4 towards it are more worth than crowns and sceptres. I 
4 believe it you often think on those words of the blessed 
4 Apostle Paul [on the corruptible and incorruptible 
4 reward]. There is a noble guest within us. 0 let all our 
4 business be to entertain Him honourably and to live in 
4 celestial love within ; that will make all things without to 
4 be very contemptible in our eyes. I should run on did 
4 I not stop myself. Therefore, 44 good night " is all I add, 
4 for whatever hour it comes to your lot, I believe you are 
4 as sensible as I that it still is night ; but the comfort is, 
4 it draws nigh towards that bright morning.' 

This eagerness resulted from his earnest desire 4 to see 
4 and enjoy perfection in the perfect sense of it, which he 
4 could not do and live. That consummation is a hope de- 
4 ferred, but when it cometh it will be a tree of life. ' 
He longed to escape from the public toils in which he 
was involved, 4 if only into the air, among the birds.' 
4 Though I have great retirement here at Dunblane,' he 
writes to his sister — 4 as great and possibly greater than I 
4 could find anywhere else — yet I am still panting for a 
4 retreat from this place, and all public charge, and next to 
4 rest in the grave. It is the pressingest desire of any- 
6 thing I have in this world ; and, if it might be, with you or 
4 near you.' To close his life was, he said, c like a traveller 
pulling off his miry boots.' His well-known wish was to die in 
an inn — 4 the whole world being a large and noisy inn, and 
4 he a wayfarer tarrying in it as short a time as possible.' So, 
in fact, he breathed his last in the Bell Inn, Warwick Lane. 

With this singular spirit of devotion was combined a free- 
dom of thought and elevation above the common prejudices 

His latitu- 0 f saints, which give him a rare place amongst divines. He 
dinarian- ... 

ism. was fully aware of the difficulties which beset the popular 
problems of theology. To his nephew, who complained 
that there was a certain text of Scripture which he could 



lect. in. IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 



109 



not understand, his answer was, 'And many more that I 
4 cannot.' Being once asked about the saints reigning with 
Christ he eluded the question by replying, 6 If we suffer 
4 with Him, we shall also reign with Him ; ' and, when 
pressed still further, answered at last : 4 If God hath ap- 
4 pointed any such thing for us He will give us heads to bear 
6 such liquor. Our preferment will not make us reel.' 
To curiosity on such points he answered in the words of the 
angel to Manoah — 4 Why askest thou thus after my name, 
4 seeing it is secret ? ' 6 Enough,' he said, 6 is discovered to 
4 satisfy us that righteousness and judgment are within, 
4 though round about His throne are clouds and darkness.' 
4 That prospect of predestination and election,' he said 4 is a 
4 great abyss into which I choose to sink rather than attempt 
4 to sound it. And truly any attempt to throw light upon 
4 it makes it only a greater abyss.' 

He fully entered into the doubts and difficulties of 
others ; and, even whilst most condemning them, believed 
them to be quite compatible with a true love of Grod. 
4 Whatever be the particular thoughts or temptations that 
4 disquiet you, look above them and below, to tlx your eyes on 
4 that infinite goodness which never faileth them that (by 
4 naked faith) do absolutely rely and rest upon it, and 
4 patiently wait on Him who hath pronounced them all (with- 
4 out exception) blessed that do so.' 4 Say often within your 
4 own heart 44 Though He slay me yet will I trust in Him." 
4 And if, after some intervals, your troubled thoughts do 
4 return, check them still with the holy Psalmist's words, 
4 44 Why art thou so cast down, 0 my soul ? " 5 

Whilst disposed almost to a monastic seclusion of reli- 
gious meditation — to the practice, as he would say, of con- 
stantly dressing and undressing his soul in devotional ex- 
ercises, he yet felt that a mixed life was the most excellent. 1 

1 Pearson, p. cxiv. 



110 MODERATION OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND lect. hi. 

He ventured to call it, thus reversing the common use of 
the word, 4 an angelical life ; ' as being 4 a life spent between 
4 ascending to fetch blessings from above and descending to 
4 scatter them among mortals.' He hated the notion of 
4 dressing religion with a hood and bells.' 1 

He was the only man of that age — we may almost say of 
any age — that deliberately set himself, as to the work of his 
life, to the union of the two Churches. He was absolutely 
indifferent to the forms of either. 4 The mode of church 
4 government,' he said 4 is unconstrained ; but peace and con- 
6 cord, kindness and good will are indispensable. But, alas ! 
4 I rarely find men bound with a holy resolution to contend 
4 for the substance more than the ceremony, and disposed 
4 in weak and indifferent things to be weak and com- 
4 pliant.' 2 

It was this supreme indifference to forms, and this intense 
desire of union which caused him not only to accept, how- 
ever unwillingly, the office of a bishop, but to accept the 
conditions of being reordained by Episcopal ordination. It 
was nothing to him how often he was reordained. It was in 
his eyes a mere form which conveyed of itself no additional 
sanctity ; and, therefore, whilst the worldly Sharpe hesitated, 
the holy Leighton saw no difficulty. It was the like in- 
difference, which, when he came to Scotland, induced him 
to use every means of conciliation to enable Presbyterians to 
come into friendly terms with the bishops. He entreated 
the Episcopalians to abstain from imitating the severities 
of the Covenanters, justifying the sarcasm, that 6 the world 
4 goes mad by turns.' 3 

Strictly Protestant as he was, whether as taken from his 
dogmatical or his latitudinarian side, he yet had an indul- 
gence even for Roman Catholics, at that time very unusual. 



Pearson, p. cxvi. 



2 Ibid. p. cxiii. 



3 Ibid. p. cxiii. 



LECT. III. 



IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTUBY. 



Ill 



To a 4 highflying Scotsman,' who said to him, 4 Sir, I hear 
4 your grandfather was a Papist, your father a Presbyterian, 
4 and you a bishop — what a mixture is this ! ' he replied, 4 It's 
4 true, sir ; and my grandfather was the honestest man of the 
4 three.' 1 Some one was told to ask him what he thought of the 
Beast, adding, 4 I told the inquirer that you would certainly 
4 answer you could not tell.' 6 Truly you said well,' replied 
Leighton ; 4 but if I was to fancy what it were, it would be 
4 something with a pair of horns that pusheth his neigh- 
* bours, as both have so much practised of late in Church and 
4 State.' He strongly condemned the zeal of proselytisers, 
whether Eoman or Protestant, 4 who fetched ladders from 
4 hell to scale heaven.' 4 1 prefer,' he said, 4 an erroneous honest 
4 man to the most orthodox knave in the world ; and I would 
4 rather convince a man that he has a soul to save, and 
4 induce him to live up to that belief, than bring him over 
4 to any opinions in whatsoever else beside. Would to God 
4 men were but as holy as they might be in the worst of 
4 forms now among us. Let us press them to be holy, 
4 and miscarry if they can.' Being told of a person who 
had changed his persuasion, all he said was, 4 Is he more 
4 meek — more dead to the world ? If so, he has made a 
4 happy change.' 2 

His aphorisms are full of spiritual wisdom. 4 One-half 
4 the world lives upon the weakness of the other.' 4 All 
4 things operate according to the disposition of the subject.' 
4 It is better to send a congregation home still hungry than 
4 surfeited.' 4 Deliver me, 0 Lord,' he used to say, 'from the 
6 errors of wise men, yea and of good men.' 3 

One single expression, perhaps, best shows the secret at 
once of his unworldliness, his humour, and his high phi- 

1 Wodrow's Analecta, i. 26. p. cxxvii. 

2 Pearson's Life of Leighton, vol. i. * Ibid. p. cxvi. 



4 




112 MODERATION OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND lect. hi. 



losophy. He was reprimanded in a synod for not 4 preaching 
4 up the times.' 4 Who,' he asked, 6 does preach up the 
4 times ? ' It was answered that all the brethren did it. 
4 Then,' he rejoined, 4 if all of you preach up the times, you 
' may surely allow one poor brother to preach up Christ Jesus 
4 and Eternity!' 1 

Such a breadth of view provoked, as was to be expected, 
the suspicions and attacks of narrow zealots. 4 Mr. Guthrie 
4 used to say, in the time of hearing him preach he was 
6 as in heaven ; but he could not bring one word with him 
6 almost out of church doors — referring to his haranguing 
4 way of preaching without heads.' 2 

He was thought to be 4 lax in his principles anent the di- 
4 vinity of Christ, and upon the matter an Arian' 3 — 'very 
4 much suspected to be an Arian, and vented several things 
4 that way.' Mr. David Dickson complained of his exposi- 
tions on charity. 4 People should not make a fool of their 
4 charity.' Leighton replied, 4 1 do not know what you mean, 
4 but the Scripture makes a fool of charity, for it says, 
4 44 Fools bear all things, and charity beareth all things." ' 
The austere Wodrow cannot forbear to add the comment on 
this playful remark — 4 A very light expression.' 4 

He gave great scandal at Edinburgh by recommending 
4 Thomas a Kempis ' as one . of the best books ever written, 
next to the inspired writers. 4 Mr. Dickson refused it, 
4 because, amongst other reasons,' he added, 4 neither Christ's 
4 satisfaction nor the doctrine of grace, but self and merits 
4 run through it.' 5 

What the effect of Leighton's character was on his 
contemporaries appears from the remarks of Burnet. To- 
tally unlike as that forward, restless, active prelate must 



1 Pearson, vol. i. p. xvi. 

2 Wodrow's Analecta, ii. 348. 

3 Ibid. i. 274; ii. 212. 



4 Wodrow, Analecta, iii. 452. 

5 Ibid. ii. 349. 



iect. in. IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 



113 



have been to the retiring and sensitive Leighton, his tes- 
timony is the more striking. 4 I bear still the greatest 
' veneration for the memory of that man that I do for any 
4 person, and reckon my early knowledge of him, and very 
4 long and intimate connexion with him for twenty-three 
4 years, among the greatest blessings of my life, and for 
4 which I know I must give account to Grod in the 
4 great day in a most particular manner. He had the 
4 greatest elevation of soul, the largest compass of know- 
4 ledge, the most sanctified and heavenly disposition that I 
4 ever yet saw in mortal. He had the greatest parts as well 
4 as virtues with the perfectest humility that ever I saw in 
4 man. He had a sublime strain in preaching with so grave 
4 a gesture, and such a majesty both of thought, of language, 
4 and of pronunciation, that I never once saw a wandering 
4 eye when he preached, and have seen whole assemblies 
4 often melt in tears before him. I never heard him say an 
4 idle word that had not a direct tendency to edification, 
4 and I never once saw him in any temper but that which I 
4 wished to be in at the last moments of my life.' 

We can still figure to ourselves the cathedral of Dun- Memorials 
blane, as it appeared during his ministrations. The beau- toiu 
tiful nave was probably as it is now — complete in all its 
proportions, save the roof. The choir was lined with the old 
stalls of the fifteenth century ; but round the walls ran an 
unsightly gallery now removed. The Bishop's house opened 
on the grassy slopes leading down to the Allan, along 
whose steep banks was an avenue of trees, still known by 
the name of the Bishop's Walk ; and the library founded by 
him yet remains, alone of inhabited ecclesiastical edifices in 
Scotland retaining a mitre over the door. 

In England, his burial-place at Horsted Keynes is still 
venerated, and his 4 Commentary on St. Peter' alone of 
ancient Scottish works of theology, is read on the south of 

I 



114 MODEEATION OF THE CHUECH OF SCOTLAND lect. m. 



the Tweed ; and the 4 Aphorisms ' drawn from it have been 
made the basis of one of the most philosophical of English 
theological treatises — 4 Coleridge's Aids to Eeflection.' 

It is not without reason that I have dwelt at such length 
on the character of Leighton. Not only does such a cha- 
racter of itself consecrate the Church in which he was born 
and bred, but it sheds its own lustre on the special tendency 
which it exemplified. However much, in later days, the 
Moderate party in the Church of Scotland may have seemed 
to become 4 of the earth earthy,' it is something for them to 
be able to claim, as their pattern, the most apostolical of 
all Protestant Scotsmen. However chimerical may seem 
in our days, an equal respect to Episcopacy and Presby- 
terianism, it is enough that the projected — the all but 
completed — union between them originated in a head so 
clear and a heart so pure as Leighton's. 
Charteris. We pass on to another, who is also commemorated by Bur- 
net, Lawrence Charteris, minister of the beautiful village of 
Dirleton, who was 4 often moved, to accept a bishopric, but 
6 always refused it.' 4 He was a perfect friend and a most 
6 sublime Christian. He did not talk of the defects of his 
4 time like an angry reformer, that set up in that strain be- 
4 cause he was neglected or provoked ; but like a man full of 
4 a deep but humble sense of them. He was a great enemy 
4 to large confessions of faith, chiefly when they were imposed 
4 in the lump, as tests ; for he was positive in few things. 
4 He had gone through the chief parts of learning ; but was 
4 most conversant in history as the innocentest sort of study, 
4 that did not fill the mind with subtlety, but helped to make 
4 a man wiser and better. ' 1 It is impossible to imagine 
anything breathing more fully the best spirit of Christian 
latitude than his address to his people on the Fast Day of 
1690 : 4 All who are wise and who have a right sense of true 

1 Burnet, Own Time, i. 216. 



IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 



115 



* religion and Christianity, cannot but see there has been a 

* great defection among us. The defection has not been from 
' the truth, or from the fundamental articles of the Christian 
' faith, but from the life of Grod and the power of religion, 
c and from the temper and conversation which the Gospel 
6 requires of us.' 1 

We have arrived at the momentous period when the Church 
of Scotland entered on the outward conditions of existence 
under which it has continued ever since. It was now that ^ e word 
there began the full ascendency of that great philosophic !jf 0 °jff ra " 
virtue and Evangelical grace in the Church of Scotland, of 
which the name has in these latter days been used as though 
it were the title of a deadly heresy, but which the Apostle 
has employed to designate one of the most indispensable of 
Christian duties in the impressive precept, 4 Let your mo- 

* deration 2 be known unto all men.' What the Apostle thus 
enjoined was the keynote of the address of the King's Com- 
missioner, Lord Carmichael, when after an interval of forty 
years the General Assembly resumed its functions in 1690: 

4 We expect that your management shall be such as we shall 
i have no reason to repent of what we have done. A calm 
6 and peaceable procedure will be no less pleasing to us than 

* it becometh you. We never could be of the mind that 

* violence was suited to the advancing of true religion ; nor 
6 do we intend that our authority shall ever be a tool to the 

* irregular passions of any party. Moderation is what reli- 

5 gion requires, neighbouring churches expect from, and we 

* recommend to you.' 

This was the true 6 Revolution settlement,' in the highest Kevolution 
sense of the word — this was the call to which, on the whole, settlement - 



1 The whole address is given in complished critic has rendered ' sweet 
Grub. ii. 327. reasonableness.' Still, the word ' mo- 

2 The original word, no doubt, has deration,' for any single phrase, is 
that deeper meaning which an ac- probably the best that could be found, 

I 2 



116 MODERATION OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND lect. hi. 



the Church of Scotland from that time since has remained 
faithful. 

The first great preacher of this new national Covenant — 
the oracle which, we can hardly doubt, inspired that royal 
recommendation to the General Assembly, was one of the most 
illustrious benefactors of the Scottish Church and nation. 1 
It was the singular fortune of King William III. to have 
had for his two most intimate advisers and friends, two of 
the most eminent ecclesiastics of Great Britain, both of them 
Scots. In the south, next to the Primate Tillotson, was 
Gilbert Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury. In the north the real 
Presbyterian Primate of the Church of Scotland, William 
Carstairs. 

Carstairs has left nothing in writing ; but his life is 
filled full of Christian strength and wisdom. His earliest 
public appearance was undergoing the agonizing trial of the 
thumbscrew before the Privy Council in Edinburgh. All 
present, even his judges, were struck by the extraordinary 
fortitude and generosity of a man £ who stood more in awe 
4 of his love for his friends than of the fear of torture, and 
' hazarded rather to die for them than that they should die 
6 for him.' 

Eecommended to the Prince of Orange by this heroic 
courage, as well as by the singular sagacity which he showed 
on the same occasion in revealing to his judges only what 
was of no use to them and no harm to anyone else, he 
accompanied William on his eventful voyage to England, 
and was the first, Scotsman and Presbyterian as he was, 
to call down the blessings of Heaven on the expedition by 

1 The . anecdotes here given are has fallen into worthy hands — the 

mostly taken from M'Cormick's Pre- Rev. Herbert Story, of Rosneatb, who, 

face to Carstairs' State Papers. Since as a descendant of the sister of that 

delivering this Lecture I have been eminent man, has been entrusted with 

delighted to hear that the task of pub- the original letters, 
lishing a complete memoir of Carstairs 



leci. III. IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 



117 



the religious service which he celebrated immediately on his 
landing at Torbay, after which the troops all along the beach, 
at his instance, joined in the 118th Psalm. From that time 
he was William's companion to every field of battle — his 
most trusty adviser in all that related to the affairs of Scot- 
land. 6 Cardinal Carstairs ' was the name by which he was 
usually known, alluding to the saying of Cardinal Ximenes 
that he could play at football with the heads of the Castilian 
grandees. The King had one all-sufficing explanation of his 
influence : 6 I have known Mr. Carstairs long ; I have known 
' him well ; and I know him to be an honest man.' One 
famous instance of his power is recorded, unique in the history 
of Princes and Churches. An oath (' the oath of assur- 
ance,' as it was called), extremely obnoxious to the G-eneral 
Assembly, had been intended by the English Government 
to be imposed on its members. The Commissioner sent 
up an earnest remonstrance against it by a special mes- 
senger. There was just time for him to return to Scot- 
land with the King's final determination on the night before 
the Assembly was appointed to meet. Carstairs was absent 
when the messenger arrived ; and in that interval William, 
under the advice of his ministers, refused to listen to the 
remonstrance, and sent off his instructions by the messenger. 
When Carstairs arrived at Kensington he heard what had 
happened. He found the messenger setting off for Scotland, 
and demanded him in the King's name to deliver up the 
despatches. It was now late at night ; not a moment was 
to be lost. He ran to the royal apartment, and was told 
by the lord in waiting that the King was in bed. He 
insisted on entering and found William fast asleep, drew 
the curtain, threw himself on his knees by the bedside, 
and awakened him. The King, startled, asked what had 
brought him, and for what he knelt. 'I am come to ask 
6 my life.' 6 What can you have done,' said William, 6 to 



118 MODERATION OF THE CHUECH OF SCOTLAND lect. in. 



4 deserve death ? ' Carstairs told what had occurred. The 
King was furious ; Carstairs begged only for a few words to 
explain. The King listened, was convinced, threw the des- 
patch into the fire, wrote a new one at the dictation of Car- 
stairs; the messenger set off, and, in consequence of this 
delay, arrived only just in time, on the very morning of the 
fatal day. The crisis was averted, and the constitutional 
establishment of the Church of Scotland at this day is, 
humanly speaking, the result of that 1 memorable night. 

He afterwards became Principal of the University of 
Edinburgh, and his Latin orations in that post made his 
hearers fancy themselves transported to the Forum of ancient 
Eome. Four times in eleven years he was Moderator of the 
General Assembly, and by his calm words in that chair the 
clergy of the Church of Scotland were induced to acquiesce in 
the Act of Union. It was during the animosity which he in- 
curred on that occasion that his colleague in Grreyfriars' 
church, of which he was the minister, who was violently op- 
posed to the Union, made a fierce attack upon him on the 
morning of a certain Sunday on which Carstairs was to preach 
in the afternoon. Whilst this attack was going on, the eyes 
of the whole congregation were fixed on Carstairs, who, with 
great composure, began to turn over the leaves of his Bible. 
In the afternoon a vast concourse assembled to hear him, when 
he gave out for his text, 4 Let the righteous smite me, it 
6 will not break my bones ; ' in which he took occasion to 
vindicate his colleague from any want of regard for him; 
that, as he knew the £ uprightness of his colleague's intention 
' and the goodness of his heart, he was determined to consider 
* any rebuke directed to himself from that place as the 
( strongest expression of his love.' It need not be said that 
congregation and colleague were alike vanquished. 

1 The accuracy of the story has ascertained, •without any adequate 
been doubted ; but, as far as can be grounds. 



lect. in. IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 119 



A like instance of his kindly temper is recorded by the 
younger Calamy, as having occurred on an occasion when he 
was present in the General Assembly. An old gentleman in 
the most insulting tone had attacked Carstairs. 4 1, sir, am 
4 as good a man as yourself; bating that you have a 
4 sprinkling of court holy water to which I must own myself 
4 a stranger. I tell you again, sir, you shall withdraw, or 
4 we'll go no further.' 1 To which Carstairs, 6 with great 
4 meekness,' replied : 4 44 Dear brother, I can more easily for- 
4 give this peevish sally of yours than you perhaps will be able 
4 to forgive yourself when you come to reflect upon it," ' and 
* so withdrew. The matter in dispute was soon determined 
4 by the Assembly, but the angry old gentleman could not 
4 rest without asking the pardon of his generous foe.' 

This fine goodhumour pervaded all the relations of life. 
When Calamy told him the insight which he had acquired 
into the practices of the Greneral Assembly, he cried out : 
4 Verily, to spy out our nakedness are you come ; and had 
4 you spent ever so much time in contriving a way to 
4 discover all our defects at once, you could not have fixed 
4 on one more effectual.' 4 One thing,' says Calamy, 4 which 
4 gave a peculiar relish to any intercourse with the College 
4 at Edinburgh was the entire freedom and harmony be- 
4 tween the Principal and the Masters, they expressing a 
4 veneration for him as for a common father, and he a ten- 
4 derness for them as though they had been his children. 
4 Were it so in all societies of that sort,' adds Calamy, 
4 they would be much more likely to answer the ends of 
4 their institution, than by running into wranglings and con- 
4 tentions, and harbouring mutual jealousies and suspicions.' 

When Calamy was attacked, and not without ground, for 
the latitude of a sermon which he had preached on the 
importance of being contented with the name of 4 Christian,' 

1 Calamy' s Life, ii. 159. 



120 MODERATION OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND lect. hi. 



without pretending to make any addition, by which in 
reality they would take from it, it was Carstairs who, with 
c great mildness and prudence,' replied to the fanatic who 
had assaulted him. 1 

It may be well to fill up the outline of the public life of 
Carstairs by some touching private incidents. When he was 
imprisoned in the castle at Edinburgh, a little boy of twelve 
years old, son of Erskine of Cambo, Governor of the castle, 
in the course of his rambles through the court, came to the 
grate of Carstairs' apartment. As he always loved to amuse 
himself with children, he went to the grate and began a con- 
versation. The boy was delighted, and every day came to the 
prison-grate — told him stories, brought him provisions, took 
his letters to the post, was unhappy if Carstairs had no errand 
to send and no favour to ask. When Carstairs was released 
they parted with tears on both sides. One of the first 
favours that Carstairs asked of King William was that he 
would bestow the office of Lord Lyon on his young friend, 
to whom he had owed so much ; and he obtained it, with 
the additional compliment that it should be hereditary in 
the family. So in fact it continued, till it was unfortunately 
forfeited by the engagement of Erskine's eldest son in the 
rebellion of 1745. 

Another story illustrates the freshness and simplicity of 
his pastoral character, amongst the absorbing public affairs 
which occupied him. His sister, the wife of a Fifeshire 
clergyman, had become a widow. Carstairs had just arrived 
in Edinburgh from London, to transact business with King 
William's ministers. She came over to Edinburgh and 
went to his lodgings. They were crowded with the nobility 
and officers of State; and she was told she could not see 
him. ' Just whisper,' said she to the servant, 4 that I desire 
6 to know when it would be convenient for him to see me.' 

1 Calamy, ii. 179. 



lect. in. IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. 



121 



He returned for answer, 6 Immediately ',' left the company, 
came to her, and most affectionately embraced her. On her 
attempting to apologise, 'Make yourself easy,' he said; 
6 these gentlemen are come hither, not on my account, but 
' their own. They will wait with patience till I return. 
'You know I never pray long.' And so, after a short 
fervent prayer, suited to her circumstances, he fixed the 
time for seeing her more at leisure, and returned in tears to 
the company. 

Towards the ejected Episcopalian clergy he acted with 
the utmost tenderness and consideration. Two striking 
instances are recorded. He had a visit from one of them, 
of the name of Cadell. Carstairs observed with pain that his 
clothes were threadbare. He eyed him narrowly, and begged 
him to call again, on the pretext of business, in two days. 
Meanwhile, he had ordered a suit of clothes from his tailor, 
to suit not his own but Cadell's make. When Cadell arrived, 
he found Carstairs in a furious passion at his tailor for 
mistaking his measure, so that neither coat, waistcoat, nor 
breeches would sit upon him. Then, turning to Cadell, 
c They are lost if they don't fit some of my friends ; and, 
6 by the by, I am not sure but they may answer you/ 
Cadell tried them. They were sent to his lodgings. On 
putting them on, he found in one of the pockets a ten- 
pound note, which he immediately brought back. 6 By no 
6 means,' said Carstairs. 6 It cannot belong to me, for when 
' you got the coat you acquired a right to everything in it.' 

When the great Churchman passed away in full age, he 
was interred with all honour in the venerable graveyard of 
his own church of Grrey Friars. As the second founder of 
the Presbyterian Church was laid in his grave, two mourners 
were observed to turn aside and burst into tears. They 
were two Episcopal nonjurors, whose families for years he 
had supported. 



122 MODERATION OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND lect. hi. 



The grave is unmarked by any monument. The name of 
Carstairs belonged to no party, English or Scottish. It is 
not famous among the zealots on either side the Border. 
But there is none of which the whole ecclesiastical pro- 
fession ought to be more proud. There is none which more 
completely rebuts the one-sided accusations of Mr. Buckle 
against the Church of Scotland. There is none which I com- 
mend more warmly to the grateful memory of the Scottish 
people, or to his successors, whether as Moderators of the 
General Assembly or as Principals of the College of Edin- 
burgh. 

It is not surprising that, after the troubles of the Union 
were over, the school which had carried the Church of 
Scotland safely through that crisis, and which numbered 
amongst its followers such names as Leighton, Charteris, and 
Carstairs, should have been in the ascendant. The old leaven 
of the Covenanting, Calvinistic system still continued, but 
it was more and more subdued, and when it did appear 
vented itself rather in indignant protests and secessions 
than in the actual government of the Church. 

When Calamy visited Scotland in 1703, 6 that which he 
4 took to be most remarkable was that not one in all the 
c Greneral Assembly was for the Divine right of the Presby- 
6 terian form of Church government, though they submitted 
4 to it.' 1 What a defection in the eyes of the anti-Prelatic 
anti-Erastian suffering remnant ! what an advance in the eyes 
of all enlightened Christians ! 
The It was now that, in the midst of those narrow prejudices 

Cler^ which have given rise to Mr. Buckle's impeachment, there 
sprung up within the Church of Scotland a body of clergy, 
who, for cultivation and enlightenment, were second to none in 
Christendom. When Warburton contemptuously said of the 



1 Calamy, vol. ii. p. 153. 



IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 



123 



Scottish clergy that they were ' half of them fanatics and half 
' infidels,' he was merely expressing, with the insolent con- 
tempt with which high English ecclesiastics have sometimes 
spoken of other churches, the fact that, side by side with 
the religious fervour of Scotland, there existed a liberality as 
conspicuous. 1 Even under the fanaticism of the Covenanters 
there lay a deep-seated reverence, as we have seen, that 
the English Church would have done well to recognise in its 
own Nonconforming members ; and what Warburton thought 
infidelity was the growth of that free and open inquiry which, 
more than any single cause, kept Christianity alive and 
respected in England and Scotland during the last century, 
whilst it was perishing on the Continent. I have spoken 
of the absence of any eminent work on specially theo- 
logical subjects emanating from the Scottish clergy. But 
this deficiency was wonderfully counterbalanced by their 
extraordinary activity in the general walks of knowledge. 

' I must confess,' said Dr. Alexander Carlyle in 1747, 2 on 
the question of the augmentation of poor livings, ' that I 
c do not love to hear this Church called a poor Church, or 
6 the poorest Church in Christendom. ... I dislike 
6 the language of whining and complaint. We are rich in 
6 the best goods a church can have — the learning, the 
< manners, and the character of its members. There are few 
6 branches of literature in which the ministers of this Church 
4 have not excelled. There are few subjects of fine writing 
' in which they do not stand foremost in the ranks of authors, 
which is a prouder boast than all the pomp of the 

1 The same sentiment is expressed a considerable sum of money, was 

more at length in Warburton's Letter the books he was in the habit of 

to Dr. John Erskine. (See Sir H. reading. ' "What books ? ' asked the 

Moncri elf Well wood's Life ofErskine, philosopher. 'Boston's Fourfold 

pp. 55, 56. Home once said partly State and Hume's Essays? — Macken- 

in play to Hume, the historian, that zie's Life of Home, p. 22. 
the cause of the fall of a chief 2 Grub, iv. 155. 

banker's clerk, who had appropriated 



124 MODEKATION OF THE CHUECH OF SCOTLAND lect. hi. 



6 hierarchy. . . . Who have written the best histories 
4 ancient and modern ? It has been clergymen of the 
4 Church of Scotland. Who has written the clearest delinea- 
6 tion of the human understanding and all its powers ? A 
' clergyman of this Church. Who has written the best 
' system of rhetoric, and exemplified it by his own writing ? 
6 A clergyman of this Church. Who wrote a tragedy that 
' has been deemed perfect ? A clergyman of this Church. 
' Who was the most perfect mathematician of the age in 
6 which he lived ? A clergyman of this Church. . 
' Let us not complain of poverty. It is a splendid poverty 
6 indeed. It is paupertas foecunda virorum. 1 

This was a noble boast, and it is well borne out by 
the brilliant galaxy of names that adorned the chairs and 
pulpits of Edinburgh in the middle and the close of the 
last century. Not till quite our own generation have 
poetry, philosophy, and history found so natural a home 
in the clergy of England, as they did then in the clergy of 
Scotland. Robert Watson, the historian of Philip II. ; 
Adam Fergusson, 1 the historian of Rome ; John Home, the 
author of the tragedy of 6 Douglas ' ; Hugh Blair, the author 
of the celebrated ' Sermons ' and of the 4 Lectures on 
' Rhetoric ' ; Robert Henry, the philosophic author of the 
History of Great Britain 2 ; and, lastly and chiefly, Wil- 
liam Robertson, the historian of Scotland, of America, 
and of Charles V., were all ministers of the Church of 
Scotland. It is a striking tribute to the eminence of 
the Scottish clergy of that epoch, that when Gruy Man- 
nering casts his eyes over the letters of introduction which 
Pleydell had given him to the first literary characters 
in Edinburgh, three at least were ministers. 

1 For a lively description of Fer- 2 For an amusing account of Dr. 
gusson, see Lord Cockburn's Memoirs, Henry's last days, see Lord Cock- 
p. 48. burn's Memoirs, p. 51. 



lect. in. IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 



125 



Of these eminent men, Home may perhaps be considered Home, 
to have passed voluntarily from his ecclesiastical to his 
literary career. 1 But of the others, their ecclesiastical 
career cannot be parted from their literary eminence. No 
other sermons in Great Britain have been followed by so 
splendid a success as the once famous, now forgotten, dis- 
courses of Hugh Blair. Neither of Tillotson nor of Jeremy Blair. 
Taylor in past times, nor of Arnold or Newman or even 
Frederick Eobertson in our own time, can it be recorded, 
as of Blair, that they were translated into almost all the 
languages of Europe, and won for their author a public 
reward from the Crown. Nor was it only the vulgar public 
that was satisfied. Even the despot of criticism (fas- 
tidious judge, zealous High Churchman, fanatically English 
as he was), the mighty Samuel Johnson, who had a few 
years before declared that no Scottish clergyman had written 
any good work on religious subjects, pronounced, after his 
perusal of Blair's first sermon, ' I have read it with more 
6 than approbation — to say it is good is to say too little.' 2 
c If they are like the first, they are sermones aurei, ac auro 
1 magis aurei. I had the honour of first finding and first 
6 praising his excellences. I did not stay to add my voice 
6 to that of the public' 3 6 A noble sermon,' he exclaimed of 
another ; 6 1 wish Blair would come over to the Church of 
6 England.' 4 1 love Blair's sermons, though the dog is a 
6 Scotchman and a Presbyterian, and everything he should not 
£ be. I was the first to praise him — such is my candour. . . 
6 Let us ascribe it to my candour and his merit.' 

What Dr. Eobertson did for history it is difficult for us, 
with the advances made since his time, fully to comprehend. 

1 The fight which was fought over burgh not fifty years afterwards, the 

the tragedy of ' Douglas,' and the com- General Assembly adjourned its 

parative victory which he won, may sittings that its ministers might 

be regarded as a decided step in the attend the theatre. G-rub, iv. 83. 

liberties of the Church of Scotland. 2 Boswell, iii. 459, 467. 

When Mrs. Siddons came to Ediu- 3 Ibid. iv. 68. 



126 MODERATION OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND lect. in. 

It is only when we look on what preceded his works that 
Robertson, we are astonished at the comprehensive grasp, the dig- 
nity, the learning with which, first of his countrymen, he 
rose to the height of that great argument. Yet how little 
do those who know of him as the familiar historian of 
Charles V. think of him as for many years the mighty 
Churchman who ruled the Church of Scotland as no one had 
done since the death of Carstairs. ' Those two doctors,' said 
Johnson, speaking of him and Blair, e are wise men and 
c good men.' 1 His first appearance was as a young minister 
in the General Assembly, where he at once led them captive 
by his eloquence. From that time for twenty years he 
remained its complete master. His administration was re- 
markable as showing how complete independence of worldly 
influence may be combined with complete vindication of the 
superiority of the law to ecclesiastical caprices. He in- 
sisted on the same strictness in the judicial proceedings 
of the Assembly as was observed in the other courts of 
justice, and left behind him a series of decisions which 
were long venerated as a kind of common law in Scot- 
land. 

He was also as thorough a Latitudinarian as Leighton. 
6 The first thing,' said Lord Elibank, 6 that gave me a good 
6 opinion of you, Dr. Eobertson, was your saying, while 
6 parties ran high soon after 1745, that you did not think 
6 worse of a man's moral character for his having been in 
' rebellion. This was venturing to utter a liberal sentiment 
6 while both sides had a detestation of each other.' 6 Dr. 
4 Johnson,' said Dr. Eobertson to the old champion of ortho- 
doxy when they met in London, 4 allow me to say that in 
4 one respect I have the advantage of you. When you were 
4 in Scotland you would not come to hear any of our 
4 preachers ; whereas, when I come here I attend your 

1 Boswell, iii. 93. 



LECT. in. IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 127 



4 public worship without , scruple, and indeed with great 
4 satisfaction.' 1 

'Who is Mr. Hayley?' he writes to Gibbon ; 'his 
6 Whiggism is so bigoted and his Christianity so fierce that 
4 he almost disgusts one with two very good things.' 2 

He exhibited the singular spectacle of the leader of 
the Presbyterian Church advocating the relaxation of the 
penal laws against the Eoman Catholics, whilst a non- 
juring divine, who afterwards became a bishop, Abernethy 
Drummond, was active in opposing it. 3 He foretold the 
time when the whole question of subscription to the exist- 
ing Confessions would occupy the mind of the Church, and 
though he could not see his way to a solution of the 
problem, he never, even in the plenitude of his power or of 
his years, used any effort to prevent it. And, as he stood at 
the head of the intellectual and ecclesiastical life of Scot- 
land, so his individual character was not unworthy of such 
eminence. We still are allowed in his declining years to follow 
4 the pleasant-looking old man, with an eye of great vivacity 
4 and intelligence, a large projecting chin, a small hearing- 
4 trumpet fastened by a black ribbon to a button-hole of his 
4 coat, and a large wig powdered and curled ' — helping the 
boys to feed their rabbits on the green, or feasting them 
with cherries from his favourite tree, or watching the 
blossoms of the fruit which he was not to see. 4 And when 
he was laid in his grave in Grey Friars' Churchyard he was 
honoured by the noblest of all testimonies — a eulogy from 
a rival in the Church, with whom for long years lie had 
contended but never quarrelled. It describes the very 
model of ecclesiastical statesmanship, the true Archbishop of 
the Church of Scotland. 5 



1 Boswell, iv. 196. 

2 Gibbon's Letters, ii. 251. 

3 Grub, iv. 142. 

4 Cunningham, ii. 550. 



5 It is quoted at length in Grub, 
iv. 144. It is recorded by his cele- 
brated grandson, Lord Brougham 
{Life, i. 27), that on November 5, 



128 MODERATION OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND lect. in. 



Campbell 

and 

Hume. 



There is another less eminent theologian, but whose work 
is of extraordinary interest, not so much from its intrinsic 
merits as from the singular illustration which it affords of 
the rare liberality of the Scottish clergy at this time. I 
refer to the e Treatise on Miracles,' in answer to David 
Hume, by Dr. Greorge Campbell, of Aberdeen. It is not 
too much to say that the name of Hume was, and is still, 
one of the chief objects of theological terror — not only in 
Great Britain, but in Europe. Hume was the great sceptic 
of a sceptical age. But if so good a judge as Adam Smith 
could say of him that he was the 4 most perfectly wise and' 
6 virtuous man he had ever known,' it is worthy the con- 
deration of Christian ministers to ponder well before they 
treat such a character as an enemy of religion. Nor did he 
put himself forward as an unbeliever. 4 1 am no Deist — I 
do not so style myself ; neither do I desire to be known by 
that appellation.' 1 He was constant in his attendance at 
the worship of the church, 2 and he presents a delicacy of ex- 
pression on religious subjects which, even if prudential, 



1788, he heard Dr. Robertson preach 
on the occasion of the centenary of 
the English Revolution a sermon ' of 
singular and striking interest from 
1 the extreme earnestness, the youth- 
e ful fervour, with which it was deli- 
' vered.' It is yet more interesting 
as a proof of his liberal sentiments, 
if it be true that it was filled with 
allusions to the approach of another 
Revolution, to ' the events then pass- 
' ing on the Continent, which would 
4 produce an event which our neigh- 
' bours would ere long have to cele- 
' brate like to that which had then 
'called them together;' his bound- 
less exultation in contemplating ' the 
' deliverance of so many millions of 
' so great a nation from the follies of 
* arbitrary government,' I have re- 
ceived a confirmation of the story from 



another grandson, Mr. William Ro- 
bertson, of Kinloch Moidart. 

1 Boswell, i. 255. A like story is 
told of his speech to Peter Boyle, 
who called on him after his mother's 
death, and found him sitting over 
* the fire. ' Do you really think, 
' David, that there is nothing more 
' left of her than in those ashes.' 
' Peter,' said Hume, laying his hand 
on his friend's knee, ' you very much 
' mistake my opinions if you as- 
' cribe to me anything of the kind.' 
I venture to repeat this story as it 
was once repeated to me from an 
authentic source, in a form some- 
what more lively and likely than that 
in which it is usually given from 
Dr. Carlyle. (See Burton's Life of 
Hume, i. 294. ) 

2 Burton's Hume, ii. 453. 



lect. in. IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 



129 



stood in remarkable contrast with many of the contemporary 
scoffers both in England and on the continent. His reward 
was that the graces of his character were acknowledged by 
the clergy even more readily than by the laity. The two 
Primates of England and Ireland were alone amongst their 
countrymen in encouraging him to prosecute his history. 
In his own country he lived on the most intimate terms 
with the leading clergy of Edinburgh. Blair openly de- 
fended him from attacks which he believed to be unjust. 
The 1 General Assembly steadily refused, though hard 
pressed, to censure his writings. The works of his friend, 
Lord Kaimes, although an elder, were not even noticed by 
that body. The crowning example of Christian courtesy 
was shown by Dr. Campbell. Before publishing his treatise, 
he submitted it to Hume's perusal, and at once accepted his 
great adversary's criticisms on passages in which the mean- 
ing of the controverted word had been misunderstood, or 
which needed to be softened. Hume himself gracefully 
acknowledged the urbanity of this truly Christian contro- 
versialist. 2 The whole transaction is a green oasis in the 
history of polemics, and was of itself sufficient to redeem 
the Scottish clergy from the indiscriminating charges which, 
with an ignorance surprising in such a man, Mr. Buckle 
brought against them. 

It is in the Established Church that these eminent men 
found their home. The narrower spirits of the age took 
refuge in one secession after another in pursuance of the 
principles indicated in my previous Lecture. Yet there are 
two striking exceptions which show how the generous prin- 
ciples nurtured within the Establishment extended to some 
of the communities which broke off from it. 

One such is the separation commonly called the Relief. 
Gillespie of Carnock stands almost alone amongst the founders 

1 Burton's Life of Hume, ii. 430. 2 Cunningham, ii. 507, 515. 

K 



130 MODERATION OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND lect. in. 



of Scottish schisms in having been driven out of the 
The Church rather than voluntarily retiring from it. The word 
Relief. 6 Belief ' expressed all that he needed ; and that 6 Belief,' 
according to the somewhat stern rule of external discipline 
established by Dr. Bobertson, was not granted to him. 
With the close atmosphere of the Secession he had no 
Gillespie, sympathy. When condemned by the Assembly he replied 
in words which are a model of dignified and temperate sub- 
mission : 6 Moderator, I desire to receive this sentence of the 
4 General Assembly of the Church of Scotland pronounced 
4 against me with real concern and awful impressions of the 
4 divine conduct in it ; but to me I reioice that it is given 
4 not only to rejoice in the name of Christ but also to suffer 
4 for it.' He heaped no calumnies on the Church after his 
deposition. In his first sermon preached in the open fields 
he expressed his hope that no public disputes would ever be 
the burden of his preaching, but Jesus Christ and Him 
crucified. 4 He desired at all seasons to have in his eye that 
4 the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God, 
4 and then went on to speak of the great truths of the Gospel 
6 without one reflection on what had passed.' 

He still loved the Church from which he had parted, and 
rather than seek assistance elsewhere resolved to take his 
whole work upon himself. The coldness of the Church 
towards him was a hard return ; yet to the end he re- 
mained faithful to his first love, and on his deathbed recom- 
mended his congregation to 4 reseek communion with it.' 
The 4 Belief has now been absorbed into the United Presby- 
terians. May we not trace in the gentler and freer spirit 
which at times appears in that body the traces of the first 
originator of one of its component parts — the latitudinarian, 
moderate, Christian-minded Gillespie ? 

There was yet one other Scottish sect of this period which 
in a different form exhibited something of the same en- 



lect. in. IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 



131 



larged temperament. Alone of all the secessions that of 
John Grlasse was not based upon the Covenant but rather on G-iasse. 
a protest against it. Alone of all Scottish seceders he 
founded his theology not on the likeness of Christianity to 
Judaism but on its unlikeness. Extravagant as some of his 
tenets were, yet his conception of the Church as a purely 
spiritual community had in it a germ of eternal truth not 
to be found in the hierarchical pretensions of the other 
seceders ; and the restoration of ancient Christian usages, 
fantastic as they were, had at least the merit of consistency. 
Alone in western Christendom this little sect has retained 
the undoubtedly primitive and once Catholic usages of 
weekly communions, of love-feasts, of the kiss of charity, 
of washing one another's feet, of abstaining from things 
strangled, and from blood. It is much to the honour of 
the General Assembly that they long bore with the eccen- 
tricities of this childlike reformer ; and in his case they 
adopted a precedent which, though harsh in its application, 
contained a principle full of forethought and kindly feeling. 
Whilst withholding from him the office of minister of the 
Established Church they distinctly recognised him as a 
minister of the Grospel. 1 In this unattached and inoffensive 
attitude he continued to act. His son-in-law, Sandeman, Sandeman. 
continued his teaching, and the simple unostentatious piety 
of this singular Scottish communion has been rewarded in 
our days by enrolling and retaining amongst its members 
the most illustrious and the most religious of modern phi- 
losophers, Michael Faraday. 

There was no doubt a repressive tendency, a natural re- intoler- 
vulsion from the extravagance of the former generation, Moderated 
such as the stern rule of Eobertson and the shrewd worldly 
sense of men like Alexander Carlyle unduly fostered. One 

1 Cunningham, ii. 455. 
k 2 



Vd2 MODERATION OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND lect. hi. 



example of the intolerance which is at times found in the 
most tolerant of schools appears in the earlier history of the 
Scottish Latitudinarians ; and if the popular view of it may- 
be taken as correct, is too striking to be passed over by any 
impartial observer. 
Sir In the venerable cemetery of Grey Friars' Church, which 

Mackenzie, contains the dust of all the contending factions of Scottish 
history — where the monument of the Covenanters recounts 
their praises almost within sight of the Grassmarket where 
they died ; where rest the noblest leaders both of the moderate 
and of the stricter party — there rises another stately monu- 
ment, at once the glory and the shame of Scottish Liberals. 
It is the ponderous tomb, bolted and barred, of Sir Greorge 
Mackenzie, the Lord Advocate under James II. 1 He it is of 
whom Davie Deans has said that 4 he will be kenned by the 
' name of Bloody Mackenzie so long as there's a Scot's 
£ tongue to speak the word.' He it is whom Wandering 
Willie saw in that terrible scene — the masterpiece of 
Scott's genius — of the revels of the old persecutors in the 
halls of Hell. c There was the Bloody Advocate Mackenzie, 
' who for his worldly wit and wisdom had been to the rest 
4 as a god.' At the massive wooden doors of that huge 
mausoleum in the Grey Friars' Churchyard, even to this day 
we are told that the boys of the old town of Edinburgh 
venture as a feat of boyish audacity in the gloaming to shout 
through the keyhole, and then fly for their lives — 

Lift the sneck and draw the bar, 
Bloody Mackenzie come out if ye dare. 

The strange and instructive aspect of this sinister and 
blood-stained memory is that it belongs to one who was 

1 I derive my impressions of Contemporary Review of August, 1871 
George Mackenzie from the hostile by A. Taylor Innes. 
but candid and able essay in the 



lect. in. IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 



133 



deemed, even by his political adversaries, 4 the brightest Scots- 
4 man of his time,' who was a bold advocate of the rights of the 
subject, a reformer of some of the worst abuses of Scottish 
law, and a philosophic theologian of the largest type. 4 It 
4 is in religion as in heraldry,' he said ; 4 the simpler the 
4 bearing is, it is so much the purer and the ancienter.' 4 1 
4 am none of those who acknowledge no temples but in 
4 their own heads. To chalk out the bordering lines of the 
4 Church militant is beyond the geography of my religion.' 
He was perfectly indifferent to the claims of Episcopacy and 
Presbytery. The laws of his country were for him a suffi- 
cient warrant for the forms of religion. Yet this great 
lawyer, so just, so enlightened beyond his age, was by stress 
of circumstance, and partly by the excess of his philosophic 
indifference, induced to frame and administer those dreadful 
laws by which the Scottish Covenanters were tortured, 
exiled, and slaughtered. He remains a warning to all 
liberal statesmen and divines that liberality of theory does 
not always carry with it liberality of action. 

When I stand in that historic cemetery before the tomb 
of the ancient Covenanters my heart glows with respect for 
honourable though mistaken adversaries. When I seek for 
the grave ot Carstairs, or gaze on the tomb of Eobertson, I 
delight in the thought that spirits so generous and so noble 
as theirs were fellow-workers and forerunners in the mission 
which I and those with whom I labour delight to honour. 
But when I turn to the monument of the Bloody Mac- 
kenzie, it is with the bitter thought that I see there the 
memorial of a valued friend, who has betrayed and dis- 
graced a noble cause, and given occasion, it may be, to the 
enemies of freedom, charity, and truth to blaspheme those 
holy names. 

The deviations from the true moderation of the Church 
of Scotland, which marked the history of Sir Greorge 



134 MODERATION OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND lect. m. 



Contro- 
versies 
respecting 



Aiken- 
head. 



Simson. 



Wishart. 



Mackenzie, no doubt appeared from time to time in the 
later periods which we have been considering. And it was 
assisted by the continued inheritance of the old Covenan ting- 
leaven, without which the Church would not have been the 
Church of Scotland, and which maintained its hold on the 
General Assembly through what was called the 6 popular 
4 party.' The cruel execution of Thomas Aikenhead, and the 
decree of the Greneral Assembly against what were absurdly 
called the 4 atheistical opinions ' of 4 the DeistsJ blackens 
the same page of Scottish history that is brightened by 4 the 
4 Act for the settling of schools.' 1 It was this same perse- 
cuting spirit which, at a later period, as we have seen, at- 
tempted, but in vain, to condemn Home, and Kaimes, and 
Hume ; which endeavoured to cast out the less known but 
still highly-interesting names of Simson and Leechmar. 
They were all accused of heresy, and they were all treated 
leniently, if not acquitted, by the Assembly. Simson's 
case was the most complicated, and involved the longest 
controversy. But the two Wisharts and Leechman are 
again examples, like Leighton and Charteris, of the union 
of the purest and most elevated religion with free ar.d 
large speculation. Wishart, who was an ardent admirer of 
the most saintly of English Latitudinarians, 2 Whichcote, was 
accused of having diminished the 4 due weight and in- 
4 fluence of arguments taken from the awe of future rewards 
4 and punishments ; ' also of 4 wishing to remove confessions, 
4 and freeing persons from subscribing thereto,' and for 
4 licentiously extending the liberty of Christian subjects.' 
It is of his brother George that Henry Mackenzie has said : 
4 His figure is before me at this moment. It is possible 
4 some who hear me may remember him. Without that 



1 Macaulay, iv. 584. Cunningham, ing essay on Benjamin Whichcote, in 
ii. 313. the Contemporary Eeview of Novem- 

2 See Principal Tulloch's interest- ber, 1871. 



I/ECT. III. 



IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 



135 



4 advantage, I can faintly recall his sainted countenance — 
4 that physiognomy so truly expressive of Christian meek- 
4 ness, yet in the pulpit often lighted up with the warmest 
6 devotional feeling. In the midst of his family it beamed 
4 with so much patriarchal affection and benignity, so much 
4 of native politeness graced with those manners which 
4 improve its form without wasting its substance, that I 
4 think a painter of the apostolic school could have found 
4 no more perfect model.' Wishart was acquitted, both by 
the Synod and General Assembly, in 1745. 1 

Leechman was Professor of Divinity at Glasgow. He Leechman. 
was in appearance like an ascetic monk ; a man distin- 
guished alike for his primitive and apostolic manners, his 
love of literature, and his liberal opinions. The ground of 
attack against him was a philosophic sermon on prayer. 
The Assembly acquitted him in words as honourable to 
itself as to him : 4 We have seen, on the one hand, the 
4 beauty of Christian charity, and the condescension to 
4 remove offence ; on the other, the readiness to make all 
4 satisfaction.' 2 

It is perhaps another form of the almost inevitable one- Luke- 
sidedness of each of the great movements of the human warmness - 
mind that, during the ascendency of the Moderates, the 
Church of Scotland partook of the lukewarmness of zeal in 
behalf of great religious and philanthropic objects which 
pervaded all Christendom during the eighteenth century. 
Yet, in justice both to Scotland and to that now unduly 
depreciated age, it must be remembered that then, for the 
first time, were set on foot endeavours seriously to evan- 
gelise and enlighten the outlying districts of the Highlands, 
which, during the fierce contentions for and against the 
Covenant, had been left untouched, in the depths of ig- 
norance and superstition. Even the system of parochial 
1 Cunningham, ii. 373-100, 469. 2 Cunningham, ii. 469, 



136 MODERATION OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND lect. in. 



education, the peculiar glory of the Scottish Church and 
nation, which had been foreshadowed in the wise schemes of 
Knox, was first put in force after the settlement of the Be- 
volution. 1 

And if we ask for the more stirring signs of religious 

Reception rev i V al, it can hardly be said that Scotland, during the last 

of White- 5 6 

field century, fell behind England, nor the Established Church of 

Scotland behind the seceding sects. It is true that when 
Wesley crossed the border he found a want of that cordial 
response which he had found in many parts of his own 
country. He was too English — must I say, too Arminian, 
too Oxonian — to rouse the sympathies of the North. But 
even he, when in 1736, in the far distant Darien, he lighted 
on the Scottish settlement, after bitter complaints of hear- 
ing an extemporary prayer, and of there being public service 
only once a week, adds, 4 Yet it must be owned that in all 
4 instances of personal or social duty this people utterly 
* shames our countrymen. In sobriety, industry, frugality, 
4 patience, in sincerity and openness of behaviour, in justice 
4 and mercy of all kinds, being not content with exemplary 
4 kindness and friendliness to one another, but extending it 
6 to the utmost of their ability to every stranger that comes 
4 within their gates.' 2 
by the And when Whitefield came to Scotland it was not, as we 

Seceders, j) a y e seen9 i n the seceding Churches, but in the Established 
Church, that he found his chief support, — if not support, at 
least toleration. 3 It was from the Church of the Moderates, 
not from the Church of the Covenant, nor that of the Epis- 
copalians, that three thousand communicants went forth to 
receive the Holy Eucharist from what the Seceders called 
4 the foul prelatic hands ' of the English clergyman. 4 In 

1 Cunningham, ii. 314. ' moderate Catholic clergyman of the 

2 Wesley's MS. Journal, commu- ' Church of England.' — Grledstone's 
nicated by the kindness of Dr. Rigg. Whitefield, p. 496. 

3 Whitefield called himself ' a 4 Gledstone, p. 292. 



lect. in. IN THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. 



137 



the West, his chief supporter was no wild fanatic, but a 
learned, unostentatious scholar, a slow, cautious, and pru- 
dent parish minister, M'Culloch of Cambuslang. In the 
East, the support which had been denied him by Ebenezer by the 
Erskine was gladly given by the leader of the popular Jfg£ed" 
party — Webster 1 — who, whatever may have been his short- Church, 
comings, and however much he may have been in some 
respects opposed to the leaders of the Moderate school, 
has not only the glory of having forwarded the mission of 
the English enthusiast, but of having summed up the whole 
proceeding with those golden words, which no mere enthu- 
siast could have conceived or penned : — £ I shall conclude 
6 with observing that the grave opposition made to this 
6 Divine work by several good men through misinformation 
6 or mistaken zeal, and the slippery precipice on which they 
6 now stand, may teach us that it is indeed a dangerous 

* thing to censure without inquiry. It may serve likewise as 
6 a solemn warning against a party spirit which so far blinds 
' the eyes. It also gives a noble opportunity for the 
6 exercise of our Christian sympathy towards these our 
6 erring brethren . . . and should make us long for a removal 
6 to the land of vision above . . . where are no wranglings, 
6 no strivings about matters of faith, and where the whole 

• scheme of present worship being removed we shall no 
e more see darkly as through a glass but face to face, 
6 where perfect light will lay a foundation for perfect 
6 harmony and love. It is with peculiar pleasure that I 



1 Webster well illustrates the 
general influence of the Moderates. 
No doubt he was in the purely tech- 
nical sense of the word what would be 
called 'the opposition ' to the school of 
Robertson. But not only the words here 
cited, but his whole intercourse with 
Dr. Carlyle and the whole attitude 
towards the Established Church make 



him a liberal, a humanising influ- 
ence, such as would have been vainly 
sought in the ascendency either of 
the Covenanters, or even of that party 
to which in a political and temporary 
sense Webster belonged. See for his 
position especially Dr. Somerville's 
Memoirs, pp. 102-107. 



138 MODERATION OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND lect. hi. 



6 often think how my good friend Ebenezer shall then 
6 enter into the everlasting mansions with many glorified 
4 saints, whom the Associate Presbytery have now given 
e over as the property of Satan. May they soon see their 
6 mistake ; and may we yet altogether be happily united 
c in the bonds of peace and truth.' This is Moderation, 
if ever there was such on earth. This was in the very 
depth of the eighteenth century, at the very moment when 
the Moderate party were beginning to establish their sway. 
When we are taught to think of the Edinburgh of that 
age as cold and dead, let us remember that it was of it that 
Whitefield, when he left it, exclaimed, £ 0 Edinburgh, 
6 Edinburgh, I think I shall never forget thee ! ' And that 
same Edinburgh never forgot him. When, years afterwards, 
he came to the Scottish capital again, he was in danger of 
being hugged to death by the enthusiastic reception of its 
citizens, and he sate, it is said, amongst them, c like a king of 
e men on his throne.' When, yet later, two months after his 
death, Foote endeavoured to bring out a play in ridicule of 
his eccentricities, the town indignantly rose, and the pulpits 
of the Established Church rang with earnest rebukes. 1 

The balance which was held thus evenly in the last cen- 
tury, at the beginning of this was disturbed ; and two 
memorable convulsions undermined the hitherto strong 
position of the Moderate party in the Church of Scotland. 
Macknight One was the contest for the chair of mathematical professor 
between Macknight and Leslie. On that occasion the Mode- 
rate clergy, the descendants of Eobertson and Blair, were 
found, from a fatal mixture of party and professional spirit, 
ranged on the side of ignorance and bigotry; and the 
Popular clergy, the descendants of Eutherford and Thomas 
Boston, from a combination of political strategy with here- 



1 Gledstone's Whitefield, pp. 477, 499. 



lect. in. IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 139 

ditary animosity against their ancient enemies, were found 
as champions of science and freedom. 

The other was the occasion when, from the union of these Imng and 
two discordant forces, the Church of Scotland drove from its Campbell, 
ranks the brightest genius and the most philosophical and 
most spiritual divine that had for many years adorned its 
clergy — Edward Irving and John M'Leod Campbell. 

Into these and the yet more strange controversies that 
followed I decline to enter. The fires of the Disruption 
still glow too warmly, even in its ashes, to allow a stranger 
to walk boldly among them. But they may be watched 
from a distance, amidst the lights and shadows thrown upon 
them from the past, and from the hopes of a brighter future, 
which I reserve for my next Lecture. 



NOTE. 

In treating the somewhat complex aspect of the Church of 
Scotland during the last century, it may be well to repeat 
briefly the position already indicated. It was not my in- 
tention to enter into the detailed questions at issue between 
the 6 Moderate ' and the 4 Popular ' party ; but to describe 
the general influence of the spirit of moderation over the 
whole Church. The name of 4 Moderate,' like all other 
party names, has been used as a term of reproach equally 
for the best and the worst of men ; and it was therefore my 
object, as far as possible, to abstain from employing it in 
this technical and at the same indiscriminate sense. It is 
clear that, in point of fact, the Church of Scotland at large 
was as proud of the leaders of its public opinion in the 
eighteenth century, as the seceding sections of the Church 
are now anxious to disparage them. It is sufficient to con- 
trast the contemptuous expressions used by modern par- 



140 MODERATION OF THE CHUECH OF SCOTLAND, lect. in. 



tisans, with the cordial and generous tribute of one whose 
very name is a guarantee for strictness of life and faith. 
e The names of such men as Cuming and Wishart and 
6 Walker and Dick and Eobertson and Blair, are embalmed, 
6 with the name of Erskine, in the hearts of all who have 
6 learned, in any manner, how to value whatever has been 
6 most respectable in our Zion. God grant that, while their 
c memory is yet fresh in the mind, the men who fill their 
6 places in the world may catch a portion of their spirit ! 
e God grant that while they, like Elijah of old, may yet 
e seem to be dropping their mantle on the earth, their spirit 
6 also, like that of the prophet, may yet remain to bless the 
6 children of men.' 1 This was the feeling towards the lead- 
ing e Moderates ' expressed by the venerable biographer of 
the leader of the popular party of that age. It is the very 
school, whose beneficent influence is pourtrayed in these glow- 
ing terms, which has in recent declarations been described 
as 4 the antagonist of the religious life of the Scottish 
6 Church,' and of which it has been said that £ their history 
6 was in one word " Ruin." ' 

1 Sir Henry Moncrieff Wellwood's Life of Erskine, p. 481. 



LECTURE IV. 



THE PRESENT AND THE FUTURE OF THE 
CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE PHILOSOPHICAL INSTITUTE, 
JAN. 12, 1872, 



LECTUKE IV, 

THE PRESENT AND THE FUTURE OF THE 
CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. 



I have almost reached the farthest limits to which I shall 
have to tax your patience and your forbearance. But I 
would still venture to say a few words on the future of the 
Church of Scotland, so far as it can be divined from the 
moral and religious phases of its former history and of its 
present condition. 

The question which I would propound is, What germs can Union 0 f 
we find of unity and prosperity in the discordant elements Qf e S gQ t urch 
of which we have been speaking? It will not be sup- land, 
posed that I come here to suggest any details of organic 
union, such as have been sometimes proposed between the 
Free Church and the United Presbyterians, or between the 
Episcopal and the Presbyterian Churches generally. In 
such projects of internal administration it becomes not a 
stranger to intermeddle, and even if it did, the study of 
the ecclesiastical history of Scotland, as of other countries, 
would make me hesitate in proposing schemes of union 
which are often rather military defences against a common 
foe than harmonious aspirations after a common good ; and 
which often cannot be effected without effacing peculiarities 
which are not less valuable than unity itself. When I 
look on the three estranged sections of Scottish religious 
life, I fully sympathise with that touching application of 
Coleridge's beautiful lines, which was made some years 



144 UNION OF THE CHUECH OF SCOTLAND. lect. rv. 

ago by a distinguished Moderator of the General As- 
sembly : 1 

Alas ! they had been friends in youth ; 
But whispering tongues can poison truth ; 
Each spake words of high disdain 

And insult to his heart's best brother : 
They parted — ne'er to meet again ! 

But never either found another 
To free the hollow heart from paining ; 
They stood aloof, the scars remaining, 
Like cliffs which had been rent asunder : 

A dreary sea now flows between ; 
But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder, 

Shall wholly do away, I ween, 

The marks of that which once hath been. 

Nevertheless, the increasing elements of union, which are 
visible in other Churches, have not failed in Scotland. 

It will be remembered that when the lamented Prevost 
Paradol addressed the audience of Edinburgh a few years ago, 
he said — in answer to the question of what Church he was 
an adherent : — 6 I belong to that Church which has no name, 
e but of which the members recognise each other wherever 
6 they meet.' 2 He meant, no doubt, that fellowship of senti- 
ment which creates a unity amongst all educated men 
throughout Christendom. It is the intellectual and philo- 
sophical expression of a very old theological truth — that 
which constitutes the first clause of the twenty-fifth article 
of the Confession of Faith: 'The Catholic or Universal 
6 Church, which is invisible, consists of the whole number 
4 of the elect which have been, are, or shall be, gathered 
£ into one, under Christ, the Head thereof, and is the 
6 spouse, the body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all.' 
These elect spirits, and the influences which they embody, are 

1 Address of the Eev. Dr. Norman 2 Lectures delivered at Edinburgh 
M ; Leod, as Moderator of the General in 1869. 
Assembly in 1869. 



LECT, IV. 



IN ITS SPIEITUAL ASPECT. 



145 



indeed confined to no one Church or country, but they are 
the links which draw all Churches and countries together. 
And it is one of the advantages of our time, as Prevost 
Paradol observed, that education of itself forms an intellec- 
tual unity amongst cultivated men, which, though unknown 
in the earlier ages of Christian Europe is now beginning to 
take its place beside the moral unity already perceived to 
exist amongst the good men of every time — a communion 
of sages not indeed coextensive with, but analogous to, the 
communion of saints. 

But what is true of the universal Church and of the 
general community of the civilised world, is also in a 
more restricted sense true of the religious communions of 
particular countries, and especially of Scotland. 

The true spiritual Church of Scotland includes them all — 1 
with the characteristics common to Scotsmen, but without 
the dividing characteristics of the several communions. And 
this union is, as regards the Presbyterians of Scotland, the 
more easy, because of that singular identity of outward doc- 
trine and ritual of which I have before spoken : 6 It is a fine 
' saying of a German Professor in his history of the Scottish 
6 Church,' said one of the noblest of modern Scottish Free 
Churchmen, 1 6 " In Scotland there are no sects, only parties." 
4 He meant that we should not dignify our differences by 
c the name of sects ; we are only parties in one great sect — 
6 the species of a genus.' To all who have been subject to 
the influence of the religion of Scotland there remains a 
peculiar flavour derived from no other source ; and many 
might be named of whom the description of the Wanderer 
in Wordsworth's 6 Excursion ' is literally true : — 

The Scottish Church, both on himself and those 
With whom from childhood he grew up, had held 
The strong hand of her purity ; and still 

1 Dr. Duncan, in Knight's Peripatctica, p. 36, 
L 



146 UNION OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. lect. iv. 

Had watcli'd him with an unrelenting eye. 
This he remember' d in his riper age 
With gratitude, and reverential thoughts. 
But by the native vigour of his mind, 
By loneliness, and goodness, and kind works, 
Whate'er, in docile childhood or in youth, 
He had imbibed of fear or darker thought 
Was melted all away : so true was this, 
That sometimes his religion seem'd to me 
Self-taught, as of a dreamer in the woods ; 
Who to the model of his own pure heart 
Shaped his belief as grace divine inspired, 
Or human reason dictated with awe. 

I propose to follow out the thought of this larger and 
more original growth of religion by taking examples from 
the various communions which shall exhibit the elements 
of this invisible or spiritual Church of Scotland, not in 
their disunion, but in their union ; and I will conclude by 
showing what is the bearing of this union on the fortunes 
of the central institution of the National Church itself. 

Let me speak first of the present sentiment prevailing 
towards the more ancient forms of Christendom. It can- 
not be doubted that they are now regarded from quite a 
different point of view to that in which they were re- 
garded in Scotland in the sixteenth, the seventeenth, or 
even the eighteenth century. Scotland has been visited by 
that revival of antiquarian and mediaeval lore which was, 
in the times of which we have spoken, almost equally dis- 
tasteful to the spirit of the Covenanters and the spirit of 
the Moderates. Kay, it may almost be said that in that 
reaction she has herself borne a principal part. It was 
Walter Scott, as Carlyle has well described, who gave the 
chief stimulus to the movement in Great Britain, and the 
authors of the 6 Tracts for the Times ' claimed him, not 
without ground, though with a total misconception of his 
larger and loftier position, as one of its first founders. But 



lect. IV. ITS ANTIQUARIAN REVIVAL. 



147 



this one fact of itself shows that the change of which I speak 
was altogether independent of any extraneous ecclesiastical 
influence. 

The ritual of the Church of England, which Jenny Greddes 
or her stool cast out from the Episcopal and Presbyterian 
Churches alike, has at last gained complete possession of 
the Episcopal Church, and is here and there making its 
way even in Presbyterian Churches. The organ, so long 
regarded as the 6 kist full of whistles,' or even as the Beast 
of the Apocalypse, has been heard to breathe out its prelatic 
blasts in more than one of the Established, and even of the 
Secession Churches. 

The architecture of mediaeval times has in our later days 
been copied by every branch of Presbyterianism. The 
remains of the ancient abbeys are deeply cherished by the 
spiritual descendants of the Protestant mobs who destroyed 
them, sometimes even more than by the spiritual descen- 
dants of the ancient Catholic chiefs who built them. 

Never in the most monastic corner of Canterbury or of 
Westminster have I found an eye more keen to appreciate 
or a tongue more ready to express the peculiar charm of 
Grothic architecture than in an old Scottish sacristan of 
the parish church of Dunblane, who had never crossed 
the Border, but was able, with genuine enthusiasm, to point 
out the delicate proportions, the 6 perfect window,' the his- 
toric associations of the venerable cathedral under which 
his own church was sheltered, Lord Cockburn has com- 
memorated in an epitaph half comical, half tragical, the shoe- 
maker 4 who was for seventeen years the keeper and shower ' 
of the cathedral of Elgin; and. told how, 'whilst not even 
4 the Crown was doing anything for its preservation, he$ 
4 with his own hands, cleared it of many thousand cubic yards 
4 of rubbish, disinterring the bases of the pillars, collecting 
4 the carved fragments, and introducing order and pro- 

l 2 



148 UNION OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND lect. iv. 



6 priety. Whoso reverences this cathedral will respect the 
6 memory of this man.' No Dean of Anglican chapter or 
Roman basilica is more proud of the sacred edifice com- 
mitted to his charge than is the parish minister of Sweet- 
heart Abbey, amongst the ruins of which he dwells, and 
Whose Very stones he delights to honour. 

The existence of this Wide-spread feeling in the Presby- 
terian Church is a proof, on the one hand, that however much 
the Episcopal Communion may assist, it was not needed to 
create, sentiments and tastes which have grown up indige- 
nously in Scotland itself. It is a proof, on the other hand, 
that any Scottish Episcopalian who understands the wants of 
his age and appreciates the feelings of his countrymen, will 
by the Church of Scotland, be received as a brother and a 
friend. When I said in my first Lecture that the future 
mission of the Episcopal Church was principally to convey 
English ideas into Scotland, nothing was farther from my 
thoughts than to deny the existence of purely northern Epis- 
copalians. No one knows better than myself how genuine is 
the Scottish blood which warms many a true Episcopalian 
heart. It has not been my intention in these Lectures to 
name any living illustrations of my arguments, but in this 
Larger li- case I may be permitted to prove the truth of my position 
Episcopal pointing to two dignitaries of the Scottish Church, to 
lians. whom I refer with the more freedom because I know they 
are not present, whom I select from their brethren both 
as furnishing the most Undoubted instances of this native 
Caledonian character in the Episcopal Communion, and as 
the most significant examples of the general truth which I 
am endeavouring to enforce. 
Dean Earn- Is there any single ecclesiastic in Edinburgh who rallies 
say * round him a wider amount of genuine Scottish sentiment 

and brotherly love, than that venerable Dean who is an abso- 
lute impersonation of 6 the reminiscences ' of all the Scottish 



LECT. IV. 



IN REGARD TO EPISCOPALIANS. 



149 



Churches, who in his largeness of heart embraces them all, 
and in his steadfast friendship, his generous championship 
of forgotten truths and of unpopular causes, proves himself 
to be in every sense the inheritor of the noble Scottish name 
which he so worthily bears ? 

And if we look into the wilds of the Highlands — although Bishop 
it is 6 a far cry to Loch Awe ' — we must bring out from Ewin £- 
thence one, who in all meetings of Anglican or quasi- 
Anglican prelates bears witness by his very countenance and 
appearance to the romantic character which I have before 
described as the main link in the last century between the 
Scottish Episcopalian Church and the rest of the nation. 
There, in the region of Argyll and the Isles, may be seen 
one who has under his charge the most purely native and 
unalloyed specimens of hereditary Episcopalians ; who, in all 
the graces and humours of his race, is a Celtic Scotsman to 
the backbone ; who has always, though a Bishop, acknow- 
ledged the Christian character of his Presbyterian brethren ; 
who, though a Dissenter, has always borne his testimony 
against the secularising influences of the voluntary system 
of which he is an unwilling victim ; who though a minister 
of one of the secessions from the Church of Scotland, has 
always lifted up his voice in behalf of those wider and more 
generous views, of which the grand old office of Episco- 
pacy was intended to be the depositary, and to which, 
though it has often been unfaithful in Scotland as else- 
where it may, through such men as those of whom I speak, 
render the most signal services both in their own sphere 
and in the Church at large. 

I turn to the other sections of religious life — those which 
more nearly adhere to the national form of worship, — the 
various fragments which have at various times broken off 
from the Established Church, and which I have described as 
inheriting more than any other the spirit of the ancient 



150 UNION OF THE CHUECH OF SCOTLAND lect. iv. 



Larger Covenanters. No doubt there is a difficulty in bending to 
tionof "the an y accommodation the stubborn stedfastness which prides 

seceding itself on isolation, and lives by disruption. Often, when we 
Churches . ' 

think of them or their forefathers, on the mountain side, or 

on their hall of assembly, the well-known lines of Milton 

recur : — 

Others apart sat on a hill retired, 

. and reason' d high 
Of providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate, 
Fix'd fate, free will, foreknowledge absolnte, 
And found no end, in wandering mazes lost. 

Yet even here there are symptoms of a spirit from another 
quarter which has broken and will still more break into 
this retirement. 

Even David Deans's doubts 6 had been too many and too 
4 critical to permit him unequivocally to unite with any of 
4 the seceders from the National Church. He had ever been 
6 a humble pleader for the good old cause without rushing 
c into " right-hand excesses, divisions, and separations. Even 
4 "he, after making the necessary distinctions betwixt com- 
4 44 pliance and defection," 44 holding back and stepping aside, 
4 44 slipping and stumbling," 44 snares and errors," was brought 
4 to the broad admission that each man's conscience would 
4 be the best guide for his pilotage, and that in the Estab- 
4 lished Church his son-in-law might safely find a field for his 
4 ministrations ; and, on his death-bed, it was only, as May 
4 Hettly observed, when 44 his head was carried " and his mind 
4 wandering that he muttered something 44 about national de- 
4 44 fections, right-hand extremes, and left-hand fallings off:" 
4 his deliberate expressions were of duty, of humility, and of 
4 the full spirit of charity with all men.' 1 

In like manner, let us hope that the age of the disruption 
has been succeeded by a generation not baptised into that 

1 Heart of Midlothian. 



lect. iv. IN REGARD TO THE SECEDING CHURCHES. 151 



fierce fire, and probably there are few now in Scotland who 
can enter into the violence with which at that time households 
were rent asunder, children quarrelled in the streets, ancient 
friends parted. Auchterarder, the scene of the original con- 
flict, after a few years settled into a haven of perfect peace ; 
the pastor whose intrusion provoked the collision between the 
spiritual and civil courts lived and died respected by the 
whole parish. Many would now join with the honoured 
historian of the catastrophe of 1843 in that truly Christian 
discourse, in which, whilst vindicating the right of the Free 
Church 1 to sever itself, he withdrew any claim to its being 
regarded as a fundamental or essential principle of religion. 

There are few who would now speak of a well-intentioned 
endeavour to reconcile two complex legal claims as an 
attempt to 'hurl the Eedeemer from His throne,' and c to 
' tear the crown from the Saviour's head ; ' or who would 
consider that even occasional attendance at the worship of 
the Established Church was £ a sin,' or 6 its Church meetings 
as no better than the assembling of so many Mahommedans 
6 in a Turkish mosque,' or c the parish minister as the one 
c excommunicated man of the district, with whom no one is 
fi to join in prayer, whose church is to be avoided as an 
6 impure and unholy place, whose addresses are not to be 
6 listened to, whose visits are not to be received, who is 
4 everywhere to be put under the ban of the community.' 

These exaggerated expressions of party spirit are worth 
citing only as water-marks of the tide of bitterness, which 
has now receded far into the ocean, never more, it may be 
hoped, to recover the shores which it has left. 

On the other hand, the religious fervour, of which the 
Covenanters and the seceders of various views claim, and 
perhaps with justice, to be the predominant representatives, 

1 ' The Church and its living Head,' a sermon preached on Nov. 13, 1859, by 
the Rev. John Hanna, LL.D. 



152 UNION OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND lect. iv. 



has overflowed all the borders of the Churches. The lan- 
guage, no doubt, of Eutherford's Letters and Thomas Bos- 
ton's 4 Fourfold State,' (as of Bunyan's 4 Grace Abounding ' 
amongst Englishmen), is now antiquated and distasteful; but 
the grace and beauty of their devotion is appreciated in a far 
wider circle than when they lived. And from the revivals of 
our more modern days, out of the smoke and sulphur of the 
volcano of the Disruption, two names of the departed emerge 
of which the main claims consist in those qualities — not 
which divided them from their brethren, but which brought 
them together. 

Every Scottish churchman, I had almost said every Scots- 
man, claims, whether before or after 1843, the honoured 
name of Chalmers. To attempt to portray his noble character 
would be in me as impertinent as for you it would be need- 
less. Yet there are a few words which I would fain utter — 
the more so, as they are in part suggested by my own humble 
recollections of that wise and good man. — Virgilium tantum 
vidi. Eleven days before his death, in the city of Oxford, 
for the first and last time I had the privilege of speak- 
ing with Dr. Chalmers. I was too young and too English 
at that time to be much occupied with the divisions which 
parted the Free from the Established Church; and there 
was assuredly nothing in his appearance or conversation 
which recalled them. But I was not too young to appreciate, 
nor am I yet too old to forget, the force, the liveliness, the 
charity with which he spoke of everything on which he 
touched. Three points specially have remained fixed in my 
memory which assuredly betokened a son not of the Covenant, 
but of the Church universal. He was full of the contrast 
of the two biographies which he had just finished ; one was 
that of 4 John Foster,' the other of 4 Thomas Arnold.' 4 Two 
• men,' he said, e so good, yet with a view of life so entirely 
4 different ; the one so severe and desponding, the other so 



lege. iv. IN REGARD TO THE SECEDING CHURCHES. 153 



'joyous and hopeful.' He had completed the perusal of 
another book, of which it seemed equally strange that he 
should have through al] his long life deferred reading it till 
that time, and that having so delayed he should then have 
had the wonderful energy to begin and master it. It was 
Gibbon's 4 Decline and Fall;' and the old man's face, Evan- 
gelical, devout Scotsman as he was, kindled into enthusiasm 
as he spoke of the majesty, the labour, the giant grasp dis- 
played by that greatest and most sceptical of English his- 
torians. Another spring of enthusiasm was opened when 
he looked round on the buildings of the old prelatic, me- 
diaeval Oxford. 6 You have the best machinery in the world, 
4 and you know not how to use it.' Such were the words 
which are still written, as taken down from his mouth, on 
the photograph of the University Church in the High Street, 
which was given to him by his host 1 at that time, which was 
restored to that host by Chalmers's family after his death, 
and by him given to me when I left Oxford, in recollection 
of that visit. 6 You have the best machinery in the world, 
4 and you know not how to use it.' How true, how discri- 
minating, and how amply justified by the prodigious efforts 
which, as I trust, since that time Oxford has made to use that 
good machinery. How unlike to the passion for destruction 
for destruction's sake which has taken possession of many 
who use his venerable name in vain ! How like to the active, 
organizing mind, which saw in establishments and institutions 
of all kinds not lumber to be cast away, but machinery to be 
cherished and used. In front of that academic church of 
Oxford we parted, just as he touched on the question of the 
interpretation of the Apocalypse. 4 But this,' he said, 4 is too 
4 long to discuss here and now ; you must come and finish 
4 our conversation when We meet at Edinburgh.' That 
meeting never came. He returned home ; and the next 

1 Henry Acland, now the distinguished Regius Professor of Medicine at 
Oxford. 



154 



UNION OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND lect. it. 



tidings I had of Mm was that he was departed out of this 
world of strife. 

As I read his biography that brief conversation rises again 
before me, and seems the echo of those wider and more 
generous views which at times were overlaid by the contro- 
versies into which he was drawn. Such is his own account 
of his longing recollection of the earlier days when he 
lived in the great ideas which are the foundation of all 
religion. 

4 Oh, that He possessed me with a sense of His holiness 
4 and His love,' he exclaims, after an interval of twenty-six 
years, 4 as He at one time possessed me with a sense of His 
4 goodness and His power and His pervading agency. I 
6 remember,' he continues, 4 when a student of divinity, and 
4 long before I could relish evangelical sentiment, I spent 
4 nearly a twelvemonth in a sort of mental elysium, and the 
6 one idea which ministered to my soul all its rapture was 
4 the magnificence of the Grodhead and the universal sub- 
4 ordination of all things to the one great purpose for which 
4 He evolved and was supporting creation. I should like to 
4 be so inspired over again, but with such a view of the 
4 Deity as coalesced and was in harmony with the doctrine of 
4 the New Testament.' Such a view he doubtless gained ; 
nor was it, if we may humbly say so, in any way incompat- 
ible (if Science and Eeligion both be true) with that which 
was the source of his earliest, and, so it would seem, his 
latest religious fervour. 1 

Even late in life he was accused by suspicious zealots of 
being an enemy to Systematic Divinity ; and his reply was 
certainly not calculated to allay the alarm. Long did he 
cling to the freer and nobler views of Theology. 4 My 
4 Christianity,' he said most wisely and truly, 4 approaches 
4 nearer to Calvinism than to any of the isms in Church his* 

1 Hanna's Life of Chalmers, iii. 206. 



lect. iv. IN REGARD TO THE SECEDING CHURCHES. 155 



4 tory ; but broadly as Calvin announces " truth," he does 
4 not bring it forward in that free and spontaneous manner 
' which I find in the New Testament.' The passage from 
English poetry which he quoted more frequently than any 
other was that pregnant passage from the Moravian Gambold, 
which contains within itself the germs of all the broader and 
higher views of faith. 

The man 

That could surround the sum of things, and spy 
The heart of God and secrets of His empire 
Would speak but love. With love the bright result 

Would change the hue of intermediate things, 
And make one thing of all theology. 

And even in the very ferment of the Sustentation Fund 
he could exclaim, 4 Who cares about the Free Church com- 
4 pared with the Christian good of the people of Scotland ? 
4 Who cares about any Church, but as an instrument of 
4 Christian good ? For be assured that the moral and 
4 religious well-being of the population is of infinitely higher 
4 importance than the advancement of any sect.' 1 

The other departed light of the great movement of 1843, John 
whom I would recall for a moment, is one whom I never Dunc 
met, but whom the descriptions of his friends and disciples 
place before us in so vivid a light, that one almost seems to 
have seen him — in his multifarious learning, in his simple- 
minded eccentric detachment from all the cares of this 
world, almost a Scottish Neander — I mean Dr. John 
Duncan. In that charming volume, which gives the most 
casual, but also the most intimate convictions of his mind, 
it is remarkable that, to the peculiar doctrines which divide 
the Free Church from the Established, there is hardly an 
allusion; that even its peculiar Calvinistic theology and 
Presbyterian platform occupies a very secondary place. 4 1 
4 am first a Christian, next a Catholic, then a Calvinist, 

2 Hanna's Life of Chalmers, i. 147, 241, 251; iv. 384, 394. 



156 



UNION OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. lect. rv. 



c fourthly a Psedo-Baptist, and fifth a Presbyterian.' How 
many would have reversed this order, and even placed 
before all, 6 1 am a Covenanter ; I am a Non-intrusionist.' 
6 I suspect,' he said, 6 that, after all, there is only one heresy, 
' and that is Antinomianism.' How many there are who 
think almost everything is heresy except Antinomianism. 
Again, let us hear him on the progress of theology. 6 There 
' is a progressive element in all things, and therefore in 
6 religion. ... It is a mistake to look on the Fathers as 
4 our seniors. They are our juniors. The Church has ad- 
6 vanced wonderfully since its foundation was laid.' Again, 
let us hear the touching description of an ancient Catholic 
monument, which implies even more than it says. 6 There 
6 is an old stone cross of granite by the roadside as you 
6 wind up the hill at Old Buda in Hungary, upon which 
a worn and defaced image of our Saviour is cut, which 
I used often to pass. Below the granite block are the 
words " 0 vos omnes qui transitis per viam atten- 
6 " dite et videte si est ullus dolor sicut dolor meus." The 
6 thorough woebegoneness of that image used to haunt me 
6 long — that old bit of granite, the ideal of human sorrow, 
' weakness, and woebegoneness. To this day it will come 
6 back before me — always with that dumb gaze of perfect 
c calmness — no complaining — the picture of meek and mute 
4 suffering. I am a Protestant and dislike image-worship, 
' yet never can I get that statue out of my mind.' 1 
United I might follow out these remarks to the other seceding 

rilni }te " communions. I have already spoken of the finer elements 
of the Eelief and of the Griassites of the 6 Secession' ; I gladly 
record that their deadly feud with Whitefield was at last 
suspended. And for the United Presbyterians, it is some- 
thing to say that they have merged at least one difference 

1 Peripatetica (Eeminiscences of Dr. Duncan by _his friend and pupil, 
Dr. Knight). 



LECT, IV. 



EDWARD IRVING, 



157 



in a common principle. It is still more to say that they 
have relaxed in some degree the strictness of the obligation 
which binds the Scottish Churches to the Westminster Con- 
fession. It is most of all to say that there are amongst 
them those who regard freedom of thought as more valuable 
than freedom of patronage, and that 'Rob and his Friends J 
and the 6 Horce Subsecivce ' represent to all the world the pre- 
cious gifts which all the Churches equally may long to claim. 

As I approach the Established Church, I venture to Edward 
advert to yet a few other names of the dead, which belong Irvin S- 
to the whole Scottish Church in its widest sense. One 
is Edward Irving. If by the pressure of an exclusive 
influence which then preponderated, but has now ceased,, 
within the Scottish Church, he was cast out from its pale — 
if, partly by his genius, partly by his eccentricities, he 
soared into regions far removed from it, he was not the less, 
by nature and by choice, its genuine child. Well it is that 
he should rest in the crypt of Glasgow Cathedral — that one 
great religious monument of Scotland which combines in 
unbroken continuity the age and the youth of her eventful 
history. 

No Scottish, no English divine within our memory has so 
nearly succeeded in uniting modern thought with the stately, 
stiff, elaborate oratory of ancient times. His true teachers 
were the great writers of a wider range than his own 
country or communion. Hooker's 6 Ecclesiastical Polity/ 
found in a farmhouse near Annan, was, as he calls it, 6 the 
6 venerable companion of his early years.' 4 1 fear not to 
6 confess,' he said, £ that Hooker, Taylor, and Baxter in 
6 theology ; Bacon and Newton and Locke, in philosophy, 
6 have been my companions, as Shakspeare and Spenser 
' and Milton in poetry. I cannot learn to think as they 
6 have done — that is the gift of Grod — but I can teach 
c myself to think as disinterestedly, and to express as honestly 



158 UNION OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. lect. iv. 



* what I think and feel.' Coleridge was to him 4 the wise and 
4 generous teacher, the good man who had helped an anxious 

* inquirer to the way of truth.' 1 His earliest friend and school- 
fellow was the greatest of living Scottish writers. No words 
that Thomas Carlyle ever wrote are more full of pathos than 
those which fell from his pen on hearing of his friend's 
death. 4 Edward Irving's career has closed. The spirit of 

* the time which would not enlist him as its soldier must 

* needs in all ways fight against him as its enemy ; it has 
4 done its part, and he has done his. One of the noblest 
4 natures — a man of antique, heroic nature, in questionable 
4 modern garniture which he could not wear. But for 
4 him I had never known what is meant by the communion 
4 of man with man. His was the freest, brotherliest, bravest 
4 human soul mine ever came in contact with. I call him, 
4 on the whole, the best man I have, after trial enough, 
4 found in this world, or now hope to find. . . . The voice 
4 of our son of thunder — with its deep tone of wisdom that 
4 belonged to all articulate-speaking ages, never inaudible 
4 amidst wildest dissonances that belong to this inarticulate 
4 age — has gone silent so soon. Closed are those lips. The 
4 large heart, with its large bounty, where wretchedness 
4 found solacement, and they that were wandering in dark- 
4 ness the light as of a home, has paused. The strong man 
4 can no more ; beaten on from without, undermined from 
4 within, he must sink overwearied at nightfall, when it was 
4 yet but the midseason of day. He was forty-two years and 
4 some months old ; Scotland sent him forth a Herculean 
4 man — our mad Babylon wore and wasted him with her 
4 engines, and it took her twelve years. . . . He died the 
4 death of the true and brave. His last words, they say, 
4 were 44 In life and in death I am the Lord's." He sleeps 
4 with his fathers in that loved birthland. Babylon, with 

1 Oliphant's Life of Irving, i. pp. 30, 56, 416. 



LECT. IV. 



THOMAS ERSKINE. 



159 



6 its deafening inanity rages on, but to him innocuous, un- 
f heeded for ever.' 1 

The mention of Carlyle and Irving suggests another — a Thomas 
venerable spirit lately removed from us, dear to each of ■ Er&kme ' 
them, dear to many a Scottish heart — Thomas Erskine of 
Linlathen. There are not a few to whom that attenuated 
form and furrowed visage seemed a more direct link with 
the unseen world than any other that had crossed their 
path in life. Always on the highest summits at once of 
intellectual cultivation and of religious speculation, he 
seemed to breathe the refined atmosphere 

where the immortal shapes 
Of bright aereal spirits live inspher'd 
In regions mild of calm and serene air, 
Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot, 
Which men call Earth. 

Other loving hands 2 may describe his goings out and 
comings in amongst you. But it may be permitted to an 
English stranger, who knew him only during his later 
years, to bear this humble testimony to the gift which the 
Scottish Church in all its branches received in that aged 
servant of the Lord. I have heard it said that once meet- 
ing a shepherd in the Highlands, he said to him, in that 
tone which combined in so peculiar a manner sweetness and 
command, and with that penetrating emphasis which drew 
out of every word that he used the whole depth of its mean- 
ing, 6 Do you know the Father ? ' and that years afterwards, 
on those same hills, he encountered that same shepherd, 
who recognised him, and said, £ I know the Father now.' 
The story, whether true or not, well illustrates the hold 
which the memory of that face and figure and speech had 
on all who ever came across it. Never shall I forget, on 

1 Carlyle, Essays. ' Erskine,' by his friend Bishop Ewing, 

2 For the present it may be suffi- which contains also the graceful tri- 
cient to refer to the interesting Pre- bute to his memory by Principal 
face to 'Some Letters of Thomas Shairp. (Present Day Papers, pp. 1-66.) 



160 UNION OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. lect. iv. 



my first visit, the profound pathos with which, in family 
worship, he read and commented on the 136th Psalm, 

* Who smote Egypt and his firstborn : for His mercy 
" endureth for ever. . . Who smote Pharaoh in the Eed 
< Sea : for His mercy endureth for ever.' ' Yes,' he said, 
c there was mercy even for Pharaoh ; even Egypt and his 
c firstborn had a place in the mercy of Grod ; ' and then, 
with the same thought, darting forward to a like stern text 
of the New Testament. 6 " Jacob have I chosen, and Esau 
* " have I rejected " ; yes, but Jacob was chosen for his 
c special purpose, and Esau — that fine character — was re - 
jected and preserved for another purpose not less special.' 

* The purpose of Grod is to make us better* He can have no 
c other intention for us.' 

No written record can reproduce the effect of conversations, 
of which the peculiar charm consisted in the exquisite grace 
with which he passed from the earthly to the heavenly, 
from the humorous to the serious, from the small things 
of daily affection to the great things of the ideal world. 
4 The element of the bird is the air ; the element of the fish 
c is the water ; and the heart of Grod is Jacob Bohmen's 

* element.' This Was a favourite quotation of his from the 
mystical Silesian. 6 That is true of all of us ; we are just 
6 fish out of water when we are not living in the heart of 
c Grod.' ' What is Christianity ? It is the belief in the inex- 
c haustible love of Grod for man.' 6 He came to seek that 
c which is lost until He find it? 6 What is human exist- 
6 ence ? It is not probation, it is education. Every step 
c we take upwards or downwards is a stepping-stone to some- 
c thing else.' c What is the proper use of Religion ? The 

* sun was made to see by, not to look at.' 1 ' What is the 

1 This saying he used to cite as say, in regard to him, ' I cannot think 
one of the best of his esteemed friend ' of God without thinking of Thomas 
Alexander Scott, who was wont to ' Erskine.' (Present Day Papers, p. 5.) 



LECT. IV. 



THOMAS ERSKINE. 



161 



4 effect of Kevelation to us ? It is the disclosure to us of 
4 our true relations to Grod and to one another, as when an 
6 exile, after long years' absence, returns home, and sees 
4 faces which he does not recognise. But one in whom he 
4 can trust comes and says, 44 This aged man is your father ; 
4 44 this boy is your brother, who has done much for you ; 
4 44 this child is your son." ' These and such as these were 
amongst the sublime thoughts that sustained his soul in 
what at times might have seemed an almost entire isola- 
tion from all ecclesiastical ordinances, but what was, in fact, 
a communion with the inner spirit of all. Presbyterian by 
his paternal connexion with the author of the Institutes and 
the minister of Greyfriars, 1 Episcopalian by his maternal 
descent and by his early education, it came to pass that in 
later life, whilst still delighting in the occasional services 
and ministrations of the Episcopal Church, and enjoying to 
the last the tender care of an Episcopalian curate, he yet 
habitually frequented the worship and teaching of the Na- 
tional Church, both in country and in town — a living proof 
of the effacement of those boundary lines which, before the 
exasperations of our latter days, were to many of the best 
Episcopalians and Presbyterians almost as if they did not 
exist. In all the varying Scottish communions he had 
those who counted his friendship one of their chief privi- 
leges ; and not only there, and in the hearts of loving friends 
in England, but far away with Catholic Frenchmen in 
Normandy, and in the bright religious society in which 
he had dwelt in former days by the distant shores of 
Geneva, his memory was long cherished, and will not pass 
away so long as any survive who had seen him face to face. 

1 He used to say, in later life, 'I his peculiar humour, ' And this, I 

' greatly value the fixed order of ' think, is the one single spiritual 

' Lessons and Psalms in the Prayer ' benefit which I have received from 

' Book ' ; and then he would add, with ' the Church of England.' 

M 



162 



UNION OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. lect. iv. 



There are two others, of a far different type, whom I 
have reserved for the last, because, unlike those whom I 
have hitherto noticed, their names are known, not only in 
the contracted circles of a theological atmosphere, not only 
through the length and breadth of Scotland, but wherever 
the English tongue is spoken, and wherever genius and 
wisdom are honoured, and who are nevertheless completely 
Scotsmen, completely Scottish Churchmen, in the largest 
sense ; who, though departed from us for a longer space than 
those I have just named, are still living and present in- 
fluences ; who, in their different measures can be overlooked 
in no Scottish ecclesiastical history worthy of the name — I 
mean Eobert Burns and Walter Scott. 

Each of these great men represents the several tendencies 
of which I have spoken, the Eomantic, the Independent, 
and the Moderate attitude of the Scottish Church. And 
each justifies his title to be considered not only as a poet, 
but as a prophet — not only as a delightful companion but as 
a wise religious teacher. 
Bobert Burns was the Prodigal Son of the Church of Scotland, 

Burns. but he was still her genuine offspring. I have already 
spoken of 4 The Cotter's Saturday Night.' But this was not 
all. He who could pen the keen sarcasms of ' Holy Willie's 
6 Prayer,' and the £ Address to the Unco' Gruid,' which pierce 
through the hollow cant and narrow pretensions of every 
Church in Christendom with a sword too trenchant but hardly 
too severe, showed that he had not lived in vain in the 
atmosphere of the philosophic clergy and laity of the last 
century, whose kindly and genial spirit saved him from 
being driven by the extravagant pretensions of the popular 
Scottish religion into absolute unbelief. Much as there 
may be in these poems that we lament, yet even they retain 
fragments of doctrine not less truly Evangelical than phi- 
losophical. 



LECT. IV. 



EGBERT BURNS. 



163 



Wha made the heart, 'tis He alone 

Decidedly can try us, 
He knows each chord, its various tone, 

Each spring, its various bias : 
Then at the balance let's be mute, 

We never can adjust it ; 
What's done we partly may compute, 

But ken na what's resistet. 

That may perhaps not be the theology of Calvin, but it 
certainly is the theology of the Sermon on the Mount. 

What prayer more comprehensive and more pathetic was 
ever uttered for a Christian household than that left at the 
manse where the poet had slept ? 

0 thou dread Pow'r, who reign'st above ! 

I know thou wilt me hear : 
When for this scene of peace and love 

I make my pray'r sincere. 

The hoary sire — the mortal stroke 

Long, long, be pleas'd to spare ! 
To bless his little filial flock, 

And show what good men are. 

She, who her lovely offspring eyes 

With tender hopes and fears, 
0 bless her with a mother's joys, 

But spare a mother's tears ! 

Their hope, their stay, their darling youth, 

In manhood's dawning blush ; 
Bless him, thou God of love and truth, 

Up to a parent's wish ! 

The beauteous, seraph sister-band, 

With earnest tears I pray, 
Thou know'st the snares on ev'ry hand, 

Guide thou their steps alway ! 

When soon or late they reach that coast, 

O'er life's rough ocean driv'n, 
May they rejoice, no wand'rer lost, 

A family in Heav'n ! 

k 3 



164 



UNION OF THE CHUECH OF SCOTLAND. lect.iv. 



What advice more profound and more pastoral was ever 
given as a guide for youth than in the 6 Epistle to a Young 
« Friend'?— 

I wave the quantum o' the sin, 

The hazard o' concealing ; 
But och ! it hardens a' within, 

And petrifies the feeling. 

The fear o' hell's a hangman's whip> 

To haud the wretch in order ; 
But where ye feel your honour grip, 

Let that aye be your border : 
In slightest touches, instant pause — 

Debar a' side pretences ; 
And resolutely keep its laws, 

Uncaring consequences. 

The great Creator to revere, 

Must sure become the creature ; 
But still the preaching cant forbear, 

And ev'n the rigid feature : 
Yet ne'er with wits profane to range 

Be complaisance extended ; 
And Atheist-laugh's a poor exchange 

For Deity offended ! 

When ranting round in pleasure's ring, 

Religion may be blinded ; 
Or if she gie a random sting, 

It may be little minded ; 
But when on life we're tempest-driv'n, 

A conscience but a canker — 
A correspondence fix'd wi' Heav'n 

Is sure a noble anchor. 

In ploughman phrase, ' God send you speed, 5 

Still daily to grow wiser ; 
And may ye better reck the rede, 

Than ever did th' Adviser. 



Behind all the wretchedness of his life, and all the levity of 
his language, it is impossible not to see in that dark 



LECT. IV. 



WALTER SCOTT. 



165 



struggle the traces of the two main principles of Scottish 
religion which I have in these Lectures endeavoured to de- 
scribe, and which, in one short, impressive passage, Burns 
has himself described for us : — ■ 

Still there are two great pillars that bear us up, amid the 
wreck of misfortune and misery. The one is composed of the 
different modifications of a certain noble, stubborn something in 
man, known by the names of courage, fortitude, magnanimity. 
The other is made up of those feelings and sentiments, which, 
however the sceptic may deny them, or the enthusiastic disfigure 
them, are yet, I am convinced, original and component parts of 
the human soul ; those senses of the mind, if I may be allowed the 
expression, which connect us with and link us to, those awful 
obscure realities — an all-powerful, and equally beneficent God ; 
and a world 'to come, beyond death and the grave. The first 
gives the nerve of combat, while a ray of hope beams on the 
field : — the last pours the balm of comfort into the wounds 
which time can never cure. 1 

Of Walter Scott I have already indicated, by the many Walter 
illustrations which his works supply, how he has sounded 
all the depths and shoals of Scottish ecclesiastical history — 
how entirely he has identified himself with every phase 
through which it has passed, even, it may be, those which 
were least congenial to himself. Episcopalian, and, in one 
sense, Jacobite as he was in his personal feelings, yet in his 
whole public life he never parted from the Church which as 
a Scotsman he claimed as his own. The worship of that 
Church was to him c our national worship ' ; 2 its traditions 
and characters counterbalance many times over in his writings 
those which he derived from the Episcopal communion. 

It would require a separate Lecture to point out the 
services which he has rendered to the Church of Great 

1 For the whole complex statement the Eev. Principal Baird, July, 1828, 
of Burns's life and teaching, see Car- furnished by the kindness of Mr. 
lyle's Essays, i. 324-398. Bailey. 

2 Unpublished letter addressed to 



166 



UNION OF THE CHUECH OF SCOTLAND. lect. iv. 



Britain as well as of Scotland, not only by the wholesome, 
manly, invigorating spirit of his works, not only by the 
example ° L his untiring conscientious resolution, not only 
by the equity and elevation of his judgment of the contend- 
ing factions in the Scottish Church and State, but by the 
firm yet tender grasp with which he handles so many of 
those graver questions which now, even more than when he 
lived, exercise modern thought. Such, for example, is the 
light which he throws by incident or argument, or passing 
speech, in one or other of his romances, on the due propor- 
tion of doctrine and practice ; on the power of prayer ; on 
the effect of miracles ; on the intermingling of the natural 
and the preternatural in human history ; on tihe relations 
of the clergy to the State and to the community at large ; 
on the superiority of internal to external evidence ; on the 
critical and philosophical comparison of the several parts 
of the Bible with each other : on the great controversy 
between authority and reason; on the relative advan- 
tages and disadvantages of the Eoman and the Protestant 
Churches ; on the distinctive peculiarities and the common 
features of the Churches of England and Scotland ; on the 
historical characteristics of Christianity and of Mahometan- 
ism; on the effect produced in all our views by the ap- 
proach of Death and of Eternity; on the nature of true 
forgiveness ; on the varying yet identical forms of supersti- 
tion ; on the essential difference between fanaticism and 
religion. The elucidations and illustrations which abound 
in those mighty works of fiction, of these and like problems, 
are more than enough to justify the place here given 
to him as one of the great religious teachers of Scottish 
Christendom. Happy that Church which has been blessed 
with such a theologian, whose voice can be heard by those 
whom no sermons ever reach, proclaiming lessons which no 
preacher or divine can afford to despise or to neglect. 



LECT. IV. 



ADVANTAGE OF INDIVIDUAL EXAMPLES. 



167 



In thus gathering* up the fruits of the true spiritual Warning 1 

Church of Scotland, I have dwelt on these individual in- ff^^ 1 ? 16 

stances partly because they bring out in a stronger light lit J ? f 

parties. 

what I wish to express ; partly also because they tend to 
enforce a lesson which, greatly needed everywhere at this 
time, is specially needed in the ecclesiastical atmosphere of 
Scotland. It is said that Oliver Cromwell, when addressing 
the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, said : 4 1 
6 beseech you, my beloved brethren — I beseech you in the 
4 bowels of Christ, to believe that you may be mistaken.' 
It was a remark pregnant with wisdom, and equally appli- 
cable to Pope, Prelate, and Presbyter ; and that was a true 
echo of it which was heard in the advice delivered by the 
greatest modern Scottish philosopher to the Seceders of 
1843, and which is equally applicable to all phases of 
popular panic and contagious excitement, 4 Be not martyrs 
4 by mistake.'' But over and above the general lesson which 
every son of Adam needs against believing in his own in- 
fallibility, I venture to think that there was a peculiar truth 
in the saying both of the Protector and the philosopher. It 
is this : that large bodies of men, especially large" parties of 
men, not only may be mistaken, but are, by the very reason 
of their moving in masses and parties, likely to be mistaken. 
And this tendency to adopt party watchwords as oracles, 
and to turn all questions into party watchwords, is a pecu- 
liar temptation in our own time, and judging from past 
and present experience, has always been a special tempta- 
tion in Scotland. Against this tendency one of the greatest 
safeguards is the contemplation of such individual examples 
as I have given, which strike across these superficial 
boundaries, and which prove the power of the individual 
being to stand by his own internal convictions, and to bring, 
if so be, the world round to himself, if only he is deter- 
mined not to follow but to guide. Of all the earnest ex- 



168 UNION OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. lect. iy. 



hortations which Walter Scott delivered to those who were to 
follow him, the most earnest, 1 as though it were engrained 
in his mind by the long and bitter experience through which 
his own country had passed, is the entreaty to shun party 
spirit as one of the most fatal obstacles to the public good. 

Whilst thus insisting on the elements of Scottish religious 
life, which are above and beyond all institutions and all 
parties, it is impossible to avoid the question (not what 
party, but) what institution most corresponds to these aspira- 
tions ? And here we cannot doubt that, viewing it as a 
whole, and with all allowance for its shortcomings, it must 
be that institution which alone bears on its front without 

TheEstab- note or comment, the title of 'the Church of Scotland.' 
lisliGcl. 

Church. Like all the other religious communities in the country 
it is compassed about with its own temporal surroundings ; 
but it is the one which in its idea most answers to 6 the 
Church without a name,' of which I spoke at the beginning 
of this Lecture, the Spiritual or Invisible Church which 
owns no earthly head. 

As of the Church of England, so of the Church of Scot- 
land, and of every National Church, the glory is, according to 
the 4 golden maxim ' of the 6 ever-memorable Hales,' to carry, 
like the prophet Amphiaraus, a 6 blank shield with no device 
of sect or party.' The Episcopal communion carries on its 
shield, by the mere force of its name, the device of Episco- 
pacy. The 4 Free Church ' claims by the assumption of that 
name the special device of the independence of the spiritual 
above the civil courts, or of the principle of the popular elec- 
tion of its ministers. The Cameronians exist in virtue of their 
ancient testimony for the Covenant. The United Presbyte- 
rians bear the device of the voluntary system and of the 
unlawfulness of contact with the State. But the Established 
Church, from which these have all seceded, bears no other 

1 Tales of a Grandfather, 3rd series. 



LECT. IV. 



THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 



169 



device but the Thistle of the Scottish nation and the historic Its histo- 
recollections of the Burning Bush of the Scottish Church. rac ter. 
Whatever Scottish Christianity is prepared to become, that 
the Church of Scotland is prepared to be. It treats Pres- 
byterianism, Episcopacy, Patronage, Non-intrusion, as in 
themselves mere accidents. It has gone through the various 
phases of the wild monastic clanship of the Culdees, of the 
Anglo-Norman hierarchy of St. Margaret, of the Scottish 
hierarchy of Eobert Bruce, the mixed Presbyterian and 
Episcopal government under Queen Mary and James VI., 
the mixed Episcopal and Presbyterian government under 
Charles I. and Charles II., the purely Presbyterian govern- 
ment from William III. onwards. It has passed through 
the Liturgy and the Confession of John Knox, the Solemn 
League and Covenant, the Sum and Substance of Saving 
Doctrine, the Westminster Confession and the Westminster 
Directory ; and, again, through the alternations of domina- 
tion, from the Eegent Murray to Andrew Melville, to Euther- 
ford and the Covenanters, to Carstairs and the Moderates, to 
Chalmers and the £ popular party.' None of these phases 
need be altogether lost to it. The Westminster Confession, 
no less than the Solemn League and Covenant, will always 
be preserved amongst its historical documents, although both 
may have ceased to express the mind of the modern Church 
of Scotland ; although, as time rolls on, the stern require- 
ments of adhesion to the Confession which emanated from 
the Jerusalem Chamber be laid aside, as the far sterner 
adhesion to the Confession that emanated from Grey Friars' 
Church has been laid aside long ago. Its romance, its inde- 
pendence, its fervour, its prudence — must we not add its 
exquisite and unrivalled humour — these are the heirlooms 
of the Church of Scotland, which it has never lost, and 
which, whatever be the change of its internal form, it need 
never lose. 



170 



THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 



LECT. IV. 



Its Pres. There is yet this further merit, which the Church of 
character. 

Scotland may claim. Whatever may be in store for its 
future, its past history and its present condition are stand- 
ing proofs that not only Christian devotion, but Christian 
culture and civilization can coexist with a form of eccle- 
siastical government which dates only from the sixteenth 
century, and with a Confession of Faith which is derived 
not from Mcsea or Alexandria but from W estminster ; not 
from Athanasius, or Constantine, or Charlemagne, or Thomas 
Aquinas, but Calvin. In the total collapse of the Episco- 
pate through the larger part of the western world, since 
nine hundred bishops have accepted an acknowledged fable 
as an essential article of the Christian faith, every Epis- 
copalian ought to be thankful for the existence of a living 
Christian Church, which shows that outside the pale of 
Prelacy Christian life and Christian truth can flourish and 
abound even if it should fail amongst the Episcopal com- 
munions. 

Its vita- And, again, it is a standing proof that the idea of a 
llfcy * National Church, so fruitful in itself, so intwined with all 

that is noblest and best in the feelings both of citizens and 
of Christians, holds its ground against all the undermining 
influences brought to bear upon it. Nothing shows more 
clearly the inherent vitality of an Established Church, than 
that in Scotland it should have survived the tremendous 
shock of the Disruption. It is the glory of the Free Church 
that it maintained itself on the strength of a single abstract 
principle, by the sheer force of self-denying energy, and of 
a bold appeal to the scruples of conscience. It is the still 
greater glory of the Established Church that it maintained 
itself in spite of the loss of many of its most zealous 
ministers, by the strength of its ancient traditions, by its 
firm conviction of right, and by its promises of a glorious 
future ; that it has received new life into its ranks, that it 



LECT. IV. 



ITS PROMISE FOR THE FUTURE. 



171 



has had the courage to repent of its former errors, 1 that it 
has become the centre of hopes and aspirations unknown to 
its own former existence, or to the communions which have 
divided from it. The very word 6 Eesiduary ' used against it 
as a reproach, was, and is, its best title of honour. Churches 
and secessions which build themselves on particular dogmas 
are not residuary ; they gather to them many of the most 
ardent and energetic, but they gather also the fierce par- 
tisans and the narrow proselytizers, and they leave out of 
sight those who are unable or unwilling to follow the 
leaders of extremes. But Churches which are founded on 
no such special principles, which have their reason of exist- 
ence simply because they profess in its most general aspect 
the form of Christianity most suitable to the age or country 
in which they live, these are 4 residuary ' Churches, be- 
cause they gather into themselves the residue of the nation, 
the simple, the poor, who are too little instructed to under- 
stand the grounds which separate the different Churches ; 
the refined, the thoughtful, who understand them too well 
to care about them, who care more for the religious, moral, 
and intellectual life of the people than for the Solemn 
League and Covenant, for Non-Intrusion, or for spiritual 
jurisdiction. 

If, therefore, the liberal intelligence of Scotland can main- 
tain its ground against the force of party spirit, there is 
little fear lest the Established Church of Scotland should lose 
its hold on the affections of the Scottish nation. To destroy 
it would not be to destroy merely an ancient institution, 
with endowments which would be taken from it only to be 
uselessly squandered, and with opportunities for Christian 
beneficence which no wise man would willingly take away 
in an age where material progress is so disproportionately 

1 As for example, the almost entire Dr. John M'Leod Campbell. See 
change of feeling in the Established Lecture III. 
Church with regard to the teaching of 



172 



THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 



LECT. IV. 



active — it would be to destroy, as far as human efforts can 
destroy, the special ideas of freedom, of growth, of compre- 
hension which are avowedly repugnant to the very purpose 
of the Seceding Churches, but which are inherent in the very 
existence of a National Church. 
Its rela- The Seceding Churches, whether Episcopal or Presby- 
Seceding 6 terian, have doubtless their own peculiar missions. As in 
Churches. England, so in Scotland, it was the folly of the Established 
Church not to acknowledge and utilise these peculiar mis- 
sions in times past, so it will be the wisdom of the Estab- 
lished Church in both countries to acknowledge and utilise 
them in times to come. One of the most distinguished of 
living Scotsmen once pointed out to me the striking archi- 
tectural effect which presents itself on ascending to the old 
city of Edinburgh in the well-known view of the Hall of 
the General Assembly as seen through the vista of the 
Free Church college. Nowhere else is either seen to such 
advantage as when the chief institution of the Church of 
the Disruption forms the foreground of the chief seat of the 
Church of the Establishment. Take away either, and the 
effect would be annihilated. This is a parable which applies 
to Established Churches and Seceding Churches everywhere. 
The Mother Church, whether of England or Scotland, can 
only be properly a/ppreciated when rising behind the fore- 
ground of the Dissenting Churches. The Dissenting Churches 
would lose half their significance if the Established Church, 
whose shortcomings they desire to rectify, but from which 
they derive their original life, and which serves to them as a 
centre and support, were swept away. It was a miserable in- 
tolerance when the Established Church in ancient times 
endeavoured to prevent the growth of Nonconforming com- 
munities that satisfied peculiar wants which from its very 
nature it could not equally supply. It would be an act of 
still more inexcusable barbarism if in our more enlightened 



LECT. IV. 



ITS PROMISE FOR THE FUTURE. 



173 



age Seceding Churches were in their turn to insist on a 
new Act of Uniformity, and, by destroying the Established 
Church, extinguish aspirations which they can never satisfy, 
because they deny their lawfulness and condemn their de- 
velopment. But they can render to the Church and the 
nation of Scotland services peculiarly their own ; they can, 
in times to come, as in times past, keep alive in the heart 
that peculiar fire of devotion and Warmth which in Estab- 
lished Churches is sometimes apt to die out in the light 
of reason and the breath of free inquiry, just as the Estab- 
lished Church has been the means of sheltering the intelli- 
gence without which devotion dwindles into fanaticism, and 
the charity and moderation, without which the most ardent 
zeal profits nothing. 

For these and for a thousand like ministrations there is 
surely ample room without the necessity of diverting the 
energies either of the National Church or of its divided 
branches into the contemptible rivalry of destroying and 
crippling each other's usefulness. 

The Church of Scotland has a claim on the attachment of Its claim 

all those who are unwilling to let go the opportunity of un- f°om UPP ° rt 

folding to the utmost the capacities of an institution which En & llsl1 " 
0 1 men. 

has already done so much for the civilisation and the edifica- 
tion of the whole Empire. Englishmen and Scotsmen of 
all persuasions may well be proud of maintaining a Church 
Which has at times in these islands been the chief support 
of the united interests of culture, freedom, and religion— a 
Church which Carstairs and Eobertson, Chalmers and Irving 
adorned — which Sir Walter Scott and Sir William Hamilton 
supported, because they felt that no existing institution 
could equally supply its place — of which the leading states- 
man of the last generation, though an Englishman and an 
Episcopalian, thus spoke to the students of the University 
of Glasgow: 4 When I have joined in the public worship of 



174 



FUTURE OF THE CHUECH OF SCOTLAND, lect. iv. 



6 your Church, think you that I have adverted to distinctions 
6 in point of form, to questions of Church government and 
' Church discipline ? No ; but with a wish as hearty and 
6 as cordial as you can entertain, have I deprecated the day 
4 when men in authority or legislation should be ashamed or 
6 unwilling to support the National Church of Scotland.' 1 

There spoke the true voice of the great days of English 
statesmanship. And no English Churchman who forecasts 
the signs of the times can fail to echo the hope. Doubtless 
the Church of England has much to suggest to the Church 
of Scotland which the Church of Scotland, at least in the 
present day, is most eager to acknowledge. I yield to no 
man living in my hopes of the magnificent mission which is 
open to the Established Church of England, if only it be true 
to itself — if only it be convinced that the true method of self- 
defence is not merely to repel the attacks of its adversaries, 
but to turn its adversaries into friends by the fulfilment of 
its lofty vocation. But the Church of Scotland has also 
its own to give us in return. It gave us in ancient days one 
of the best of our prelates — the first complete model of a 
truly pastoral bishop, Gilbert Burnet. It has in these latter 
days given to us the Primate who most recalls the enlight- 
ened spirit of Tillotson — a Scotsman of the Scots — Archi- 
bald Campbell Tait. It has in these latter years set an 
example of noble liberality to all the Churches by its readi- 
ness in welcoming in its pulpits the 2 ministrations of Pre- 
latists no less than of its own seceding members. 

When I think of the cordial and intelligent sympathy 
which it has been my privilege to encounter in many a 



1 Speech of Sir Kobert Peel at Glas- 
gow. See Chalmers's Life, iv. 171. 

2 I am aware that the law of the va- 
rious Presbyterian communions leaves 
it equally open to them to avail them- 
selves of this liberty. But I believe 



that I am correct in saying that it is 
hitherto only in the Established 
Church that this liberty— at least as 
regards the Episcopal clergy— has 
been acted upon. 



lect. iv. ITS RELATIONS TO THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 175 

manse, east and west, highland and lowland ; when I think of 
the freedom and charity which have inspired the ministra- 
tions of Grey Friars' Church in Edinburgh, past and present ; 
when I reflect on the teaching that has gone forth and is 
going forth from the Cathedral and Barony Church of Glas- 
gow, and from that noble University which has done so much 
in former days, and in our own, for uniting in the closest 
bonds of affection the intellectual and moral life of both 
countries ; when I call to mind the true union of philosophy 
and religion which in the pulpit of the National Church 
welcomed the scientific gathering at Dundee; when I re- 
member what I may be allowed to call my own St. Andrew's, 
with the genial intercourse and varied learning which h as so 
often cheered my studies, as I have lingered there listening 
to 4 the two mighty voices ' of its sounding sea and its vast 
cathedral : when I think of all these things, I cannot doubt 
of the true freedom and strength (in all that constitutes 
real freedom and strength) of the Established Church of 
Scotland. 

It was, in old days, customary for Oxford divines to 
speak of the Church of England as Judah, and the Church 
of Scotland as Samaria. 1 That contemptuous thought has 
now been exchanged for a wiser and a better feeling. The 
most accomplished scholar, the most purely Oxford theolo- 
gian amongst the Scottish bishops, has in these latter days 
spoken with a far truer and nobler sense of the mutual rela- 
tions of the two Churches, and entreated them to be at one 
with another on the equal terms of 6 Euodias and Syntyche,' 2 
Yet Scotland might, if she chose, not altogether refuse the 
ancient reproach of Samaria. Samaria had prophets at times 
when Judah was in darkness. The stern Elijah, the benefi- 
cent Elisha, the simple Amos, the tender Hosea, had their 

1 See the Lyra Apostolica. "Wordsworth, D.D. (Bishop of St. An- 

2 Euodias and Syntyche, by Charles drew's). 



17G FUTUKE OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. lect. iv. 

home not in the southern but in the northern kingdom : and 
the hills and vales of Gralilee nurtured the Divine Light 
which Jerusalem laboured to extinguish. But there is, 
if I may continue the sacred parallel yet further, a better 
and a nobler end for both. As in those two divided 
Churches of Palestine, so in these two once rival Churches 
of Britain, the highest prophetic instinct points to a time 
when these recriminations will cease for ever — 'when 
Judah shall no longer vex Ephraim, and Ephraim shall 
no longer envy Judah.' 



CHRONOLOGY OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. 



CELTIC CHURCH. 

A.D. 

360-432. St. Mnian in Galloway. 

432. St. Palladius, St. Serf, and St. Ternan in Fifeshire. 
454-601. St. Kentigern in Strathclyde. 
563-597. St. Columba in Iona. 
865. Migration of Kenneth to Scone. 

MEDIAEVAL CHURCH. 

1080. Marriage of Malcolm Canmore and Margaret at 
Dunfermline. Norman hierarchy. 

1124-1153. Reign and religious foundations of St. David. 

1305-1329. Reign of Robert the Bruce. Severance of 
the connexion with England. 

1440-1465. Kennedy, Bishop of St. Andrew's. 

1472. St. Andrew's converted into a metropolitan see. 

REFORMATION. 
1539. Death of Patrick Hamilton. 

1546. Death of George Wishart. Murder of Cardinal 
Beaton. 

1547-1572. Preaching of John Knox. 

1560. Adoption of the Confession of Knox, and abolition 

of the Roman Catholic Church by the 
Scottish Parliament, August 17-24. Meeting 
of the First General Assembly, December 20. 

1561. Arrival of Queen Mary. 

1565. Marriage with Darnley. 

1566. Murder of Rizzio. 

N 



178 



CHRONOLOGY OF THE 



A.D. 

1567. Murder of Darnley. 

1567-1570. Regency of Murray. 

1570-1581. Regency of Morton. 

1570. Restoration of Episcopacy. 

1572. Death of Knox. 

1574-1606. Preaching of Andrew Melville. 

1582. Death of George Buchanan. 

1586. Death of Queen Mary. 

1592. Restoration of Presbytery. 

ECCLESIASTICAL STRUGGLES WITH ENGLAND. 

1603. Accession of James VI. to the throne of Great 
Britain. 

1606. Restoration of Episcopacy. 
1618. The Five Articles of Perth. 
1625. Accession of Charles I. 

1633. Coronation at Holyrood. Valuation of tithes. 

1637. Attempt to impose the English Liturgy. Tumult 

at St. Giles's. 

1638. The National Covenant. General Assembly of 

Glasgow. Restoration of Presbytery. 
1643. Solemn League and Covenant to enforce Presbytery 

throughout the kingdom. Assembly of Divines 

at Westminster. 
1648. Westminster Confession of Faith. Longer and 
Shorter Catechisms. 

1650. Battle of Dunbar. 

1651. Coronation of Charles II. at Scone. 

1660. Restoration. 

1661. Rescissory Act. Death of Samuel Rutherford. 

1662. Restoration of Episcopacy. 
1665-1687. Persecution of the Covenanters. 

1679. Murder of Archbishop Sharpe. Battle of Both well 
Brigg. 

REVOLUTION SETTLEMENT. 

1688. The Convention. 

1689. Restoration of Presbytery. 



CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. 



179 



1690. General Assembly. Separation of Cameronians. 

1691. Suppression of Episcopacy. 

1694. Carstairs and the Oath of Assurance. 

1707. Act of Union. 



1712. Patronage Act. 

1715. Death of Carstairs. 

1718-1722. 'Marrow 
controversy.' 

1728-1729. 'Simson con- 
troversy.' 

1734. Death of Wodrow. 

17.32-1734 Secession of 
the Erskines. 

1736. Porteous mob, 'Ju- 
dicial Testi- 
mony.' 

1725-1739. Secession of 
the Glassites. 

1741. First preaching of 
Whitefield. 

1 744. ' Leechman contro- 
versy.' 

1746. Division between 
Burghers and 
Anti-burghers. 

1751-1780. Administra- 
tion of William 
Robertson. 

1752. Secession of the 
' Relief.' 

1757. Tragedy of 
' Douglas.' 

1763. Hume and Camp- 
bell. 

1779. Agitation on Penal 
Laws. 

1780-1790. The Buchan- 
ites. 



1712. Legal Protection of the 
Episcopal commu- 
nion. 

1724-1727. Usagers and Col- 
legers. 



1745. Revolt of Charles 

Edward. 

1746. Episcopalian Disabili- 

ties. 



1765. Introduction of Scottish 
Communion Office. 

1784. Concordat with Bishop 
Seabury of Connec- 
ticut. 

1792. Repeal of Episcopalian 
Disabilities. 



180 CHRONOLOGY OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. 



1798. Preaching of Row- 
land Hill. 

1833. Deposition of Ed- 

ward Irving. 

1834. His death. 
1843. Disruption. 

1847. United Presbyte- 
rians. Death of 
Chalmers. 



1804. Acceptance of the 
Thirty-Nine Arti- 
cles. 

1838. Death of Bishop Jolly. 



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Member of the Indian Council, Author of "Ancient Law; " and Corpus Professor of Jurisprudence 

in the University. 



Svo. 9s. 



ME. MUEEAY'S QUAETEELY LIST OF NEW WOEKS. 7 



HISTORY OF PAINTING IN ITALY, 

FROM THE 2nd TO THE 16th CENTURY. 

DRAWN UP FROM FRESH MATERIALS AND RECENT RESEARCHES IN THE ARCHIVES 
OF ITALY, AS WELL AS FROM PERSONAL INSPECTION OF THE WORKS 
OF APT SCATTERED THROUGHOUT EUROPE. 

By J. A. CROWE and C. B. CAVALCASELLE, 

Authors of " Lives of the Early Flemish Painters." 

1st Series. IInd.— XIVth. CENTURY. 3 Yols. 
2nd Series. XIVth.— XVIth. CENTURY. (N. Italy). 2 Yols. 

With Numerous Illustrations. 5 Vols. 8vo. 105s. 

"The authors, anxious to do for readers in the nineteenth century what Vasari did so 
worthily for his contemporaries three hundred years ago, have spared no pains in collecting 
material for a narrative as complete as possible, and have chosen to write a new and distinct 
work only because their information was too plentiful and varied to be incorporated in a fresh 
edition of Vasari. These volumes form almost a complete work, and one very greatly to be 
admired for the good scholarship and excellent taste with which it has been prepared. It is 
valuable alike for the richness of its biographical material, and for the carefulness and abundance 
of its analytical account of the great paintings of the period. In a judicious, philosophical way 
it associates painting with painting, artist with artist, and school with school, illustrating and 
drawing illustration from all by showing their connection with the general history and the 
social and political tendencies of their own times." — Examiner. 

PRIMITIVE CULTURE; 

researches into the development of 

MYTHOLOGY, PHILOSOPHY, EELIGION, ART ; AND CUSTOM. 
By EDWARD B. TYLOR, RR.S., 

Author of the " Early History of Mankind." 
2 Vols. 8vo. 245. 
— <& — 

THE 

STUDENTS ELEMENTS OF GEOLOGY. 

By SIR CHARLES LYELL, Bart., F.R.sS., 

Author of "Principles of Geology," " The Antiquity of Man," &c. 



Sixth Thousand. With 600 Woodcuts. Post Svo. 9s. 



8 ME. MUEEAY'S QUAETEELY LIST OF NEW WOEKS. 



A MANUAL OF SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY, 

FOR THE USE OF OFFICERS AND TRAVELLERS IN" GENERAL. 
Edited Tby Rev. ROBERT MAIN, M.A., F.R.S., 

Radcliffe Observer. 
Fourth Edition. Post 8vo. 3s. 6d. 
Published bt Authority of tiie Admiralty. 

"A volume — a perfect knowledge of which would render any man a most agreeable and 
instructive companion — a guide, philosopher, and friend. It is a 'Manual of Scientific 
Inquiry/ by the best authors, in a most compendious form, well got out, and illustrated. 
Ordinary people migbt be afraid to talk to a naval officer or a traveller in general who had 
such a book off by heart. He certainly would possess a great deal of most useful knowledge." 
— Army and Navy Gazette. 

" The present is the fourth edition of this well-known work, and although the editor has 
not altered the general form of the book or the arrangement of the articles, he has by adequate 
revision provided that such of them as required it through the additional knowledge gained in 
the last twelve years be brought up to the present epoch. It is impossible to speak too highly 
of this work, which may be considered as one of the most useful scientific works now 
published." — Scientific Revi&iv. 

o- - 

THE WELLINGTON DESPATCHES,— 
CIVIL & POLITICAL.— VOL. IV. 

Edited by his SON. 

Svo. 20s. 



THE CHOICE OF A DWELLING; 

A PRACTICAL HANDBOOK OF USEFUL INFORMATION ON ALL POINTS 
CONNECTED WITH HIRING, BUYING, OR BUILDING A HOUSE. 

By GERVASE WHEELER, 

Architect, Author of " Rural Homes," " Homes for the People," &c. 

With Woodcuts and Plans. Post 8vo. 7s. 6cL 

'•Few compilations could be plainer, clearer, or more concise than Mr, "Wheeler's directions 
how to proceed to choose or build a house. Much of what can be said upon the subject has 
already been said ; but to this he has added more, and so divided and docketed, as it were, his 
advice and information, that the issue is a very compact and suggestive manual. It is 
intended for the general public, rather than for the professional student ; but the office-shelves 
of architects would be all the more complete for its presence."— Builder. 



ME. MURRAY'S QUARTERLY LIST OP NEW WORKS. 9 



CONTRIBUTIONS to the LITERATURE 
OF THE FINE ARTS, 

By SIR CHARLES EASTLAKE, R.A., 

With a memoir of the author and Selections from his Correspondence. 
By LADY EASTLAKE. 

CONTENTS : 

The Fine Arts ; Scriptural and Legendary Subjects of the Middle Ages ; Modern 
German School of Fresco Painting ; State and Prospects of the English School ; Repre- 
sentation as distinguished from Description ; Sculpture ; Basso-Rilievo ; Painting 
suited to the decoration of Public Buildings ; Life of Raphael ; Paintings in the Capella 
Sistina ; Goethe's Theory of Colours ; Decoration of a Villa ; Philosophy of the Fine 
Arts ; How to observe ; Difference between Language and Artj The Formative Arts 
and Descriptive Poetry. 

Two Vols. 8vo. 24s. 
4 

THE HANDWRITING OF JUNIUS 
PROFESSIONALLY CONSIDERED. 

By MR. CHARLES CHABOT, Expert. 

"With Preface and Collateral Evidence, 
By the HOW. EDWARD TWISLETON. 

"With Facsimiles and "Woodcuts. 4to. 63s. 

"If anyone reads Mr. Chabot's report without the least bias or preconceived opinion, wo 
think that he will admit that stronger evidence was never given than is here offered in support 
of the identity of ' Junius ' with Sir Philip Francis. Unless we are sceptics enough to adopt 
Byron's solution that 'Junius' was nobody at all, unless we can satisfy ourselves with the 
comfortable belief that some old chest in an undiscovered country-house encloses the two copies 
of the correspondence sent to ' Junius ' by Woodfall, and will at some future day give up its 
contents and fix beyond all doubt the identity of the author, we must accept Mr. Twisleton's 
work as final." — Spectator. 



THE WORKS OF ALEXANDER POPE. 

A NEW EDITION. EDITED WITH INTRODUCTIONS AND NOTES. 
By REV. WHITWELL EL WIN. 

With Portraits. 8vo. 10s. 6d. 
Vols. I. & II., Poetry; Vols. VI. & VIL, Letters. 



10 ME. MUEEAY'S QUARTEELY LIST OF NEW WOEKS. 



THE 

LOCAL TAXATION of GREAT BRITAIN 
AND IRELAND. 

By R. H. INGLIS PAL GRAVE. 

8vo. 5s. 



THE MUTINEERS OF THE BOUNTY 
AND THEIR DESCENDANTS. 

By LADY BELCHER. 

With Illustrations. Post 8vo. 12s. 



THE REVOLT OF THE PROTESTANTS 
IN THE CEVENNES. 

By MRS. BRAY, 

Author of " The Good St. Louis, &c, &c." 
Post 8vo. 105. 6d. 



HALLAM'S HISTORICAL WORKS; 

with the Author's latest Corrections and Additions. 
HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 3 vols. 12s. 

HISTORY OF EUROPE DURING- THE MIDDLE AGES. 3 vols. 12s. 
LITERARY HISTORY OF EUROPE. 4 vols. 16s. 

\* TJie public are cautioned against imperfect editions that have appeared of these 
works, as they are merely reprints of the first editions, which the author himself de- 
clared to be full of errors, and they do not contain the author's additional notes 
and latest corrections. 



HANDBOOK FOR TURKEY IN ASIA, 

CONSTANTINOPLE, THE BOSPHORUS, DARDANELLES, BROUSA, AND 
PLAIN OF TROY, 

Asia Minor, the Islands of the ^Egean, Crete, Cyprus— Smyrna and the 
Seven Churches, Coasts of the Black Sea, Armenia, Mesopotamia, &c. 

With Maps and Plans. Post 8vo. 15s. 



MR. MURRAY'S QUARTERLY LIST OF NEW WORKS. 11 



THE STORY OF THE 

LIFE of WILLIAM WILBERFORCE. 

Condensed from the Larger "Work. 
By the BISHOP OF WINCHESTER. 

With Portrait. Post 8vo. 65. 

" Mr. Wilberforce's talents were of the very highest order, his eloquence very powerful and 
attractive ; and in Parliament he held a position of authority and independence almost 
unparalleled. This volume contains a great deal about his contemporaries, but we have dwelt 
chiefly on its central figure, the noble philanthropist, the consummate orator, the blameless but 
genial Christian gentleman." — Times. 

" The Bishop has done wisely to issue a revised and condensed edition, and to give the 
public a cabinet portrait of his father, in place of the full-length, which could only hang in a 
large gallery." — Spectator. 



THE FIVE GREAT MONARCHIES OF 
THE ANCIENT WORLD; 

Or, The History, Geography, and Antiquities of Assyria, Babylonia, 
Chald^ia, Media, and Persia. 

By GEORGE RAWLINSON, M.A., 

Camden Professor of History at Oxford. 
Second Edition, revised, with Maps and Illustrations. 3 vols. 8vo. 42s. 



A RIDE THROUGH THE DISTURBED 
DISTRICTS OF NEW ZEALAND. 

WITH NOTES OF A CRUISE AMONG THE SOUTH SEA ISLANDS. 

By the Hon. HERBERT MEADE, Lt. R.N. 

Second Edition. With Maps and Illustrations. Medium 8vo. 12s. 



THE ROB ROY ON THE JORDAN, 

THE NILE, RED SEA, LAKE OF GENNESARETH, ETC. 

A CANOE CRUISE IN PALESTINE, EGYPT, AND THE WATERS OF DAMASCUS. 

By JOHN MACGREGOR, M.A. 

Eighth Thousand. With 8 Maps and 70 Illustrations. Crown 8 vo. 12s. 



12 ME. MTJEEAY'S QUAETEELY LIST OF NEW WOEKS. 



AN 

ACCOUNT of the MANNERS and CUSTOMS 
of the MODERN EGYPTIANS. 

By EDWARD WM. LANE. 

Fifth Edition. Edited by E. STANLEY POOLE. 

With Woodcuts. 2 vols. Post 8vo. 125. 



CONSTITUTIONAL PROGRESS. 

By MONTAGU BUEEOWS, M.A., 

Chichele Professor of Modern History at Oxford. 
Cheaper Edition. Post 8vo. 5s. 

" There may be some who will think these lectures, however brilliant and earnest as essays, 
yet somewhat deficient in that dignity and connection which it is customary to associate with 
the Professorial Chair; but none can deny that Professor Burrows has the rare ability to 
discuss the most vital questions temperately and dispassionately." — Guardian. 

" We are much mistaken if a perusal of Professor Burrows' work will not tend to strengthen 
the conviction that whatever may be the disadvantages connected with it, there is an over- 
whelming preponderance of advantages to be secured by the maintenance of an Established 
Church." — Christian Observer. 



THE BOOK OF MARCO POLO; 

CONCERNING THE KINGDOMS AND MARVELS OF THE EAST. 
A New English Version. 
Illustrated by the Light of Oriental Writers and Modern Travels. 
By COLONEL HENRY YULE, C.B., 

Late of the Royal Engineers (Bengal). 

With 20 Maps and Plates, and 80 Illustrations. 2 Vols. Medium 8vo. 42s. 

" A new edition of Marco Polo, which, by the profound erudition it displays on all topics 
relating to the mediaeval geography of central and eastern Asia, merits prominent notice in 
an Address like the present. Colonel Yule has shown himself thoroughly competent for the 
great work which he has now, after many years' labour, brought to a conclusion." — Sir It. 

Murchison' s A.ddress. 

" Much that to ordinary readers would be utterly unintelligible is clearly elucidated, and 
those persons who delight in quaint and recondite lore will find their tastes abundantly 
gratified in the wealth of illustration which Colonel Yule has brought to bear on the text of 
his favourite author. The book is, moreover, profusely and admirably illustrated, not only 
with maps, but plates descriptive of many curious places and things mentioned by Marco Polo 
in the course of his travels." — Christian Observer. 



Albemarle Street, 
February, 1872. 



MR. MURRAY'S 
LIST OF WOEKS IN THE PEESS. 



DR. WM. SMITH'S ANCIENT ATLAS. 



An Historical Atlas of Ancient Geography, 

BIBLICAL AND CLASSICAL. 

COMPILED UNDER THE SUPERINTENDENCE OF 

WILLIAM SMITH, D.C.L., and GEOEGE GROVE, Esq. 



THIS important Work, which has been undertaken to supply an acknow- 
ledged want, as well as in Illustration of the DICTIONAEY OF THE 
BIBLE and the CLASSICAL DICTIONAEIES, and which has been fourteen 
years in preparation, is now nearly ready for publication. The Maps have 
been drawn on a large scale, and have been executed by the most eminent 
engravers in Paris and London. They contain the modern names along with 
the ancient ones. There is also a series of smaller Maps, in illustration of 
each country at different historical periods. The Classical Maps have been 
prepared by DE. KAEL MULLEE, the Editor of Strabo and the Minor Greek 
Geographers, under the superintendence of DE. WILLIAM SMITH. Those of 
the Holy Land and Mount Sinai include the recent observations and positions 
obtained by the Officers of Eoyal Engineers employed in surveying them, and 
have been constructed under the superintendence of ME. GEOEGE GEOVE. 

The Atlas will contain a series of Maps of the same size as those of Keith 
Johnston's Eoyal Atlas of Modern Geography, with which it will range. 
It will be published quarterly, and the first Part will appear early in 1872. 
The Maps are numbered in the order in which they will be finally arranged. 
The last Part will contain descriptive Letterpress and a full Index. 



CONTENTS. 



1. Geographical Systems of the 
Ancients. 

2. The World as known to the 
Ancients. 

3. Empires of the Babylonians, Ly- 
dians, medes and persians. 

4. Empire of Alexander the Great. 



5. Kingdoms of the Successors of 
Alexander the Great. (First 
Part.) 

6. Kingdoms of the Successors of 
Alexander the Great. (Second 
Part.) 

7. The Roman Empire in its great- 
est Extent. 



14 MR. MURRAY'S LIST OF WORKS IN THE PRESS. 



Dr. William Smith's Ancient Atlas — continued. 

CONTENTS — continued. 

d. Acropolis ; e. Marathon ; /. Eleu- 



8. The Roman Empire after its 
division into the eastern and 
Western Empires. 

9. gr reek and phoenician colonies. — 
Also Maps : a. Magna Grascia ; b. 
Sicily at the time of the Pelopon- 
nesian War ; c. Syracuse ; d. Agri- 
gentum ; e. Bosporus Cimmerius. 

10. Britannia. 

11. HlSPANIA. 

12. Gallia.— 

Also Maps : a. Gallia before the time 
of Augustus; b. Insula Batavorum ; 
c. Port of Massilia. 

13. Germania, Rhjstia, Noricum. 

11. P^eonia, Thracia, Mcesia, Illyria, 
Dacia, Pannonia. 

1 5. Historical Maps of Italy. 

16. Italia Superior. 

1 7. Italia Inferior. 

18. Plan of Rome. > 

19. Environs of Rome. 

20. Greece after the Doric Migra- 
tion. — 

Also Maps : a. Greece in the Heroic 
Age ; b. Plain of Troy. 

21. Greece at the time of the Per- 
sian Wars. 

22. Greece at the time of the Pelo- 
ponnesian War. 

23. Greece at the time of the 
Achaean League. 

24. Northern Greece. 

25. Central Greece, — 
Containing Attica, Boeotia, Locris, 
Phocis, Doris, Malis. Also Maps : 
a. Athens ; b. The Environs of 
Athens : c. The Harbours of Athens : 



26. Peloponnesus, — 
With Plan of Sparta. 

27'. Shores and Islands of the ^Eg^an 
Sea. 

28. Historical Maps of Asia Minor. 

29. Asia Minor. 

30. Arabia. 

31. India. 

32. North Africa, Carthage, &c. 

33. ^gypt and ^Ethiopia. 

34. Historical Maps of the Holy 
Land. — 

a. Before the Conquest, 1451 B.C. ; 

b. After the Conquest, as divided 
amongst the Twelve Tribes ; c. 
During the Monarchy, 1095 B.C. to 
586 B.C. ; d. Under the Maccabees, 
100 B.C. ; e. Under Herod the Great, 
B.C. 40 ; /. In the time of our Lord ; 
g. Under Agrippa I., A.d. 41 ; h. At 
the destruction of Jerusalem, A.D. 7 0. 



Land. (Northern Di- 
(Southern Di- 



35. The Holy 
vision.) 

36. The Holy Land. 
vision.) 

37. Jerusalem, Ancient & Modern. — 
Also, Maps : a. J erusalem in the time 
of David ; b. Jerusalem according 
to Josephus. 

38. Environs of Jerusalem. 

39. Sinai, from the recent Survey, and 
the Desert of the Wanderings. 

40. A Map to illustrate the Old Testa- 
ment. 

41 . A Map to illustrate the New Testa- 
ment. 



PART I. 

(To be published early in 1872) will contain the following Maps : 
No. 35. THE HOLY LAND. (Northern Division.) 
,, 34. HISTORICAL MAPS OF THE HOLY LAND. 
,, 9. GREEK AND PHOENICIAN COLONIES. 
„ 12. GALLIA. 
,, 16. ITALIA SUPERIOR. 

„ 20. GREECE AFTER THE DOBIC MIGRATION. 

„ 21. GREECE AT THE TIME OF THE PERSIAN WARS. 



MR. MURRAY'S LIST OF WORKS IN THE PRESS. 15 



An Encyclopedia of Classical Antiquity. 

OF 

GKEEK AND ROMAN ANTIQUITIES, BIOGRAPHY, MYTHOLOGY, 
AND GEOGRAPHY. 

By Various Writers. Edited by WM. SMITH, D.C.L. 

With Illustrations. 6 Vols. Medium Svo. 

These important Dictionaries — written by eminent Scholars, and edited by Dr. 
William Smith — have been long acknowledged to be indispensable to every Library 
and every Student. But as their cost has hitherto prevented many from possessing 
them, it has been decided to place them within the reach of a much larger number of 
readers by publishing the works at the following reduced -prices : — 

I. DICTIONARY OF GREEK AND ROMAN ANTIQUITIES. With Illustra- 
tions. Medium 8vo. 28s. Originally published at 42s. 

II. DICTIONARY OF BIOGRAPHY AND MYTHOLOGY. With Illustrations. 
3 Vols. Medium 8 vo. 84s. Originally published at 51. 15s. Qd. 

III.— DICTIONARY OF GREEK AND ROMAN GEOGRAPHY. With Illustra- 
tions. 2 Vols. Medium 8vo. 56s. Originally publislied at 80s. 



Modem Indian Problems: 

SELECTIONS FROM SPEECHES DELIVERED AND MINUTES 
PUBLISHED IN INDIA. 

By Sir HENRY SUMNER MAINE, K.C.S.L, LLD. 

Member of the Indian Council ; 
Author of "Ancient Law," " Village Communities in the East and West." 

8vo. 



Lectures on the Rise and Development of 
Mediaeval Architecture. 

DELIVERED AT THE ROYAL ACADEMY. 
By GEORGE GILBERT SCOTT, R.A., F.S.A. 



16 MR. MURRAY'S LIST OF WORKS IN THE PRESS. 



Aristotle, 

By GEORGE GROTE. 

Life of Aristotle ; Aristotelian Canon ; a complete Analysis of the several Treatises 
comprised in the Organon, the De Anima ; an Introduction to the Metaphysica, and an 
Abstract of the greater part of that Work ; some cognate Philosophical Discussions ; and An 
Account of the Doctrines of Epicurus and the Stoics. 

2Yols. 8vo. 

Uniform with the Library edition of Grote's "History of Greece." 



Notes of Thought 

By the late CHARLES BUXTON, M.P. 

Crown 8vo. 



The Works of Alexander Pope. 

Edited, with Introductions and Notes, 

By Rev. WHITWELL ELWIN. 

This "Volume will contain 350 unpublished Letters, including 70 written by Pope and 
Lord Orrery, disclosing the secret history of the publication of the Pope and Swift Cor- 
respondence which have been recently discovered by the Editor. 

Vol. VIII. With Portrait. 8vo. 

Forming the Third Volume of The Correspondence. 



A History of the Church of France, 

FROM THE CONCORDAT OF BOLOGNA, 1516, TO THE REVOLUTION. 
With an Introduction. 
By W. HENLEY JERVIS, M.A., 

Prebendary of Heytesbury. 
With Portraits. 2 Vols. 8vo. 



MR. MURRAY'S LIST OF WORKS IN THE PRESS. 17 



A Description, Historical & Artistic, of the 
National Memorial to H.R.H, the Prince Consort 

Illustrated by accurate engravings of the Monument in Hyde Park, its Architecture, 
Decorations; Sculptured Groups, Statues, Mosaics, Metalwork, &c, designed and 
executed by the most eminent British artists. Published by the sanction of the 
Executive Committee. 

24 Large Plates. Engraved under direction of LEWIS GROTER. 

The descriptive text will be accompanied by numerous Woodcuts. 
Folio (50 Copies on Large Paper). 

%* Subscribers' Names will be received by all Booksellers, and ivill be printed with 
the Work, if received in good time. 



A Dictionary of Christian Antiquities and 

Biography. 

FROM THE TIMES OF THE APOSTLES TO THE AGE OF CHARLEMAGNE. 

By Various Authors. 
Edited by WM. SMITH, D.C.L., LL.D., 
With Illustrations. 2 Vols. Medium 8vo. 



Historical Memorials of the Royal Palace 
and Chapel of the Savoy. 

By the late J. G. LOCKHART, 

Sometime Auditor of the Duchy of Lancaster, 

Edited by Rev. HENRY WHITE, 

Chaplain of the Chapel Royal, Savoy, and to the Speaker ; Honorary Chaplain to the Queen. 

With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 

These Memorials were printed by command of the Queen, in 1844, for private 
circulation, and will be published with many additional ITotes and Illustrations. 



18 MR. MURRAY'S LIST OF WORKS IN THE PRESS. 



The Supplementary Despatches of the 
Duke of Wellington, vol, xiv. 

Edited by HIS SON. 

CONTENTS. 

Instructions issued by the Duke in Spain, the South of France, and during the Waterloo 
Campaign, respecting the organization and discipline, and upon the movements and orders 
of battle, of the Allied Armies. Intercepted Letters and Reports from French Generals ; 
Napoleon's Instructions to his Marshals, &c, &c. 

8vo. 

*** A complete Index of the Series of tlie Supplementary Despatches, including the 
Appendix, ivill also be published, completing the WorJi. 



Ephemera. — Second Series. 

By LORD LYTTELTON. 

Crown 8ro. 9.<?. [Heady. 



The Longevity of Man; 

ITS FACTS AND ITS FICTION. 

Including Observations on the more Remarkable Instances, and Hints for Testing 
Reputed Cases. 

By WILLIAM J. THOMS, F.S.A. 

Post 8vo. 



A Smaller Manual of Ancient Geography. 

By Rev. W. L. BEVAN, M.A. 
With Illustrations. ICiuo. 3.?. 6d. [Ready. 



MR. MURRAY'S LIST OF WORKS IN THE PRESS. 19 



Essays on Cathedrals. 

Edited, with an Introduction, by J. S. HOWSON, D.D., 

Dean of Chester. 
CONTENTS : 

RECOLLECTIONS OF A DEAN. Bishop of Carlisle. 
CATHEDRAL CANONS AND THEIR WORK. Canon Norms, M.A. 
CATHEDRALS IN IRELAND, PAST AND FUTURE. Dean of Cashel. 
CATHEDRALS IN THEIR MISSIONARY ASPECT. A. J. Beresford Hope, M.P. 
CATHEDRAL FOUNDATIONS IN RELATION TO RELIGIOUS THOUGHT. Professor 
Westcott. 

CATHEDRAL CHURCHES OF THE OLD FOUNDATION. Edward A. Freeman, D.C.L. 
WELSH CATHEDRALS. Canon Perowne, B.D. 

EDUCATION OF CATHEDRAL CHORISTERS. Sir F. Gore Ouseley, Bart., M.A. 
CATHEDRAL SCHOOLS. Canon Durham, M.A. 

CATHEDRAL REFORM. PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE. Canon and Chancellor 
Massingberd, M.A. 

RELATION OF THE CHAPTER TO THE BISHOP. Rev. E. W. Benson, D.D. 
ARCHITECTURAL ARRANGEMENTS OF ENGLISH CATHEDRALS HISTORICALLY 
CONSIDERED. Canon and Precentor Yenables, M. A. 

8vo. \ Rmdy. 



Metallurgy of Gold & Silver, Mercury, Platinum, 

Tin, Nickel, Cobalt, Antimony, Bismuth, Arsenic, 

AND OTHER METALS. 
By JOHN PERCY, M.D., F.R.S., 

Lecturer on Metallurgy at the Royal School of Mines, London. 
With numerous Illustrations. 8vo. 



The Correspondence of the late Earl of Elgin; 

Governor- General op India, ftc. 
Edited by THEODORE WALROND, 
8vo. 



20 MR. MURRAY'S LIST OF WORKS IN THE PRESS. 



History of the Christian Church. 

• By JAMES C. ROBERTSON, M.A., 

Canon of Canterbury, and Professor of Ecclesiastical History in King's College, London. 

Vol. IV. —From the death of Boniface VIII. to the End of the Fifth Council of the 

Lateran. 1303—1517. 

8vo. 



Student's Constitutional History of England. 

By HENRY HALLAM, LL.D. 

A New and Revised Edition. 
Including the Author's latest Corrections and Additions. 

Edited by WM. SMITE, D.C.L., LL.D. 

One Volume. Post 8vo. 



The Origin of Species, by means of Natural 

Selection ; 

Or, The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. 

By CHARLES DARWIN, F.R.S. . 

6th and Cheaper Edition. 
With a Glossary of Scientific Terms. 

With Woodcuts. Post 8vo. [Heady. 



MB. MURRAY'S LIST OF WORKS IN THE PRESS. 21 



A History of Greece. 

By GEORGE GliOTE, F.R.S., D.C.L. Oxon. and LL.D. Camb. 
Li braky Edition. With Portrait, Maps, and Plans. 10 vols. 8to. 



A Handbook for all England. 

Alphabetically Arranged to facilitate Reference, serving as a 
Companion to Bradshaw's and other Railway Guides. 

Post 8m 



Mediasval Latin-English Dictionary. 

Founded on the Great "Work of Ducange, 
By E. A. DAYMAN, B.D., 

Late Fellow and Tutor of Exeter College, Oxford ; Rector of Shillingstone, Dorset 
Prebendary of Sarum. 

Small 4to. 



History of British Commerce, 

FROM THE CONCLUSION OF THE SEVEN YEARS' AVAR TO 
THE PRESENT TIME. 

By Professor LEONE LEVI, F.S.A., 

Barrister-at-Law, Doctor of Political Economy of the University of Tubingen. 



8vo. 



[Ready. 



22 MR. MURRAY'S LIST OF WORKS IN THE PRESS. 



A Copious English Grammar. 

A Methodical, Analytical, and Historical Treatise on the Orthography, 
Prosody, Inflections, and Syntax of the English Tongue. 

AVith numerous Authorities, cited in the order of Historical development. 
From the German of PROFESSOR MAETZNER, of Berlin. 

3 Vols. 8vo. 



The Church and the Age— Second Series, 

Edited by ARCHIBALD WEIR, D.C.L., & W. D. MAC LAGAN, M.A. 

CONTENTS : 

THE CHURCH AND PAUPERISM. Earl Nelson. 

PRESENT AND FUTURE RELATIONS OF THE CHURCH TO NATIONAL EDUCA- 
TION. Canon Norris, M.A. 
SYSTEMS OF ECCLESIASTICAL LAW. Isambard Brunel, D.C.L. 
CHURCH AND SCIENCE. Prebendary Clark, M.A. 
CHURCH IN IRELAND. Dean of Cashel. 
CHURCH'S SERVICES. Canon Ashwell, M.A. 

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE ANGLO-AMERICAN CHURCH. Bishop of Western 
New York. 

THE UNIVERSITIES AND THE CHURCH. John 0. Talbot, M.P. 
TOLERATION. Rev. B. Morgan Cowie, B.D. 

ANGLICAN CHURCH AND THE EASTERN CHURCHES. Rev. Geo. Williams, B.D. 
THE CHURCH AND SOCIETY. Charles Watts-Russell, B. A. 

8vo. 



Handbook for Travellers in Greece, 

The Ionian Islands, Athens, Albania, Thessaly, and Macedonia. 
New Edition. Maps. Post 8vo. 



Handbook for Travellers in Egypt 

The Nile, Alexandria, Caiuo, Thebes, and the Overland Route to India. 
New Edition. Map. Post 8vo. 



MR. MURRAY'S LIST OF WORKS IN THE PRESS. 23 



NEW TEXT-BOOKS FOR PRIMARY SCHOOLS. 

MURRAY'S ELEMENTARY SERIES. 

In the Press and in Preparation, 

The Reports of the Royal Commissioners arid Inspectors of Schools express a very 
general and reasonable dissatisfaction with the text-books at present in use. The 
result is a daily increasing- want of suitable manuals, and nowhere is this greater 
than at the very outset of all teaching. 

The object of the present Series is therefore twofold : to supply a graduated course 
of English Instruction, from the very alphabet up to the writings of our classical 
authors, of such a nature as to comply with the requirements of the New Code, also 
to provide a set of suitable manuals for those schools which do not come under 
any government supervision, and for private use. 



A First English Grammar. 

By DR. WM. SMITH & THEOPHILUS D. HILL, M.A. 

Post 8vo. 



A History of Britain, 

By PHILIP SMITH, B.A., 

Author of the "Student's History of the East," &c. 
Post 8vo. ■ 

The History of Britain having been named by the " School Board of London " 
as a part of its prescribed course of education, pains have been taken to adapt this 
Work to its purpose in substance, style, and form. 



Patterns for Turning; 

COMPRISING 

ELLIPTICAL AND OTHER FIGURES CUT ON" THE LATHE WITHOUT THE 
USE OF ANY ORNAMENTAL CHUCK. 

By H. W. ELPHINSTONE. 

With 70 Illustrations. Small 4to. 



24 a«e. hvssat's xjot of works in the'pbess. 



r d m, 



A Journey to the Source of the River 

BY THE INDUS, KABUL, AND BADAKHSHAN. C • 
By GAPT. JOHN WOOD, 

Indian Navy. 
New Edition, with Map. Post 8vo. 
"Having already more than once had oecasion to refer to Captain Wood, we will brieily 
state that he accompanied Alexander Burnes in his mission to Cabool, and afterwards performed 
one of the most remarkable journeys ever undertaken in Central Asia. He made a survey of 
the Indus, from its mouth to Attock. At Kalabagh, the point where the Indus escapes from 
the Salt Range, he found it impossible to stem the current. Undaunted by the difficulty, he 
landed and went by forced marches to Attock; thence, descending the river, he completed his 
survey amidst the falls and rapids. After reaching Cabool, he crossed the mountains to Khunduz, 
and was eventually the first European, after Marco Polo and Benedict Goes, who ever reached 
the Bam-i-dunya, or Roof of the World. Thus in 1838 Wood discovered the source of the 
Osus on the margin of the Pamir Steppe, and for this splendid achievement he was rewarded 
with the Patron's gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society. Captain Wood's narrative 
presents the most brilliant confirmation in detail of Marco Polo's descriptions/' — Quarterly 



The Speaker's Commentary on the Bible, 

Explanatory and Critical, with a Revision of the Translation. 
By BISHOPS AND OTHER CLERGY OF THE ANGLICAN CHURCH. 
Edited by Canon COOK, M.A. 
Vols. II. and III. -THE HISTORICAL BOOKS. 
/ Joshua, Rev. T. E. Espin, B.D. 
Vol. II. \ Judges, Ruth, Samuel, Bishop of Bath and Wells. 
( /. Kings, Rev. George Rawlinson. 
II. Kings, Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, 
Rev. George Rawlinson, M.A. 
Medium 8vo. 



Vol. III. 



Lectures on the History of the Church 
of Scotland. 

DELIVERED IN EDINBURGH IN 1872. 
Br ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY, D.D., 

Dean of Westminster. \ 
8vo. 



The Principles of Geology, 

or the modern changes of the earth and its inhabitant?, considered as 
' illustrative of geology. 

By SIR CHARLES LYELL, Bart., F.R.S., 

llth Edition, thoroughly revised. Vol. I. With Illustrations. 8vo. 16s. [Ready. 



BRADBURY. EVANS, AND CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS. 



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